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

[TheTigerMaster]

I know traffic studies have shown that the line isn't supposed to see usage greater than 4K PPHPD in the original section, but if we consider the fact that this line is supposed to receive 2 extensions of nearly 20km each that will serve a large commuter base, I'm actually wondering if the original crosstown estimates were bloated, and whether we should be worrying about capacity even before the extensions are built. 6K PPHPD is way too small for the Eglinton Crosstown even in the short term (it doesn't account for surges in traffic demands), I can't imagine what it'll be like when we have close to 60K passengers using the line at each end (or appx 15K passengers during peak commute times). Honestly, what were they thinking?

I'm not worried about this. Peak point ridership will be low because of an abundance of transfer points: Mt Dennis, Eglinton West, Yonge, Don Mills (DRL) and Kennedy.

On the eastern end of the line, only a portion of westbound customers will ever make it Yonge/Eglinton, as a lot of them will transfer away at Kennedy and at Don Mills. Eastbound peak hour traffic into Yonge will actually be quite low.

On the west end, most of the eastbound customers will transfer from the ECLRT at Eglinton West. Travel demand on the western half of the line (EWLRT included) is low enough that the demand can be handled adequately

 

[Streety McCarface]

Capacity is a function of individual train capacity and service frequency. It looks like they're calculating capacity based on expected opening-day train frequencies (one train every four mins approx).

At 90 second frequencies, which is the extreme upper limit of possible service frequencies, capacity would be 15k pphpd. I speculate that a more realistic max capacity is 12,000 pphpd at 2 min frequencies (any more frequent and service quality will suffer precipitously)

I'd still think that's honestly too high. Even in the underground section, 2 minute frequencies, while possible, would require a sizable capital investment. I'm not sure how long the platforms for this section would be, but I imagine 3-car lengths like the existing crosstown. I'd say 3 minute frequencies with individual train capacities of 130 people is a fair assessment (and let's be frank, 251 passengers per car has never happened on the TTC and never will), meaning that the PD capacity would be around 8K PPHPD. Not bad, but still a capacity concern for the crosstown, especially after the extensions are built.

 

[Rainforest]

I'm actually surprised that no one is talking about the fact that they are quoting a capacity of 5,900 PPHPD. Like...wtf? The crosstown has claims for capacities up to 15K PPHPD (which most people didn't believe anyways), so why is there such a drastic change here, especially for the fully grade separated options? As far as I'm concerned, there aren't going to be any plans to shortturn trains at Mt Dennis, and even then, it wouldn't affect the maximum potential capacity of the line.

I suspect that's a glitch in their model, rather than some real constrain. Could be as simple as them taking a fixed platform size at each station (across all of options 1-4), and calculating their capacity limit based on that fixed platform length/width rather than on the # of vehicles per hour. It wouldn't matter if the platforms can be easily extended; every model predicts the outcomes strictly based on the formal inputs, and is totally oblivious to the broader context.

That said, the western section is unlikely to reach that 5,900 demand level any time soon. They could as well refrain from publishing that capacity limit altogether, as it doesn't really affect the choice of option.

I know traffic studies have shown that the line isn't supposed to see usage greater than 4K PPHPD in the original section, but if we consider the fact that this line is supposed to receive 2 extensions of nearly 20km each that will serve a large commuter base, I'm actually wondering if the original crosstown estimates were bloated, and whether we should be worrying about capacity even before the extensions are built. 6K PPHPD is way too small for the Eglinton Crosstown even in the short term (it doesn't account for surges in traffic demands), I can't imagine what it'll be like when we have close to 60K passengers using the line at each end (or appx 15K passengers during peak commute times). Honestly, what were they thinking?

We won't know for sure until some time after the line opens, but at this point, it doesn't seem like ECLRT will have capacity issues soon after it opens.

Longer term, it greatly depends on the implementation of other transit expansion plans. If all transit expansion stalls and no new lines are built, ECLRT remains one of the few relatively dependable transit options, then surely it will hit its capacity limit at some point.

 

[crs1026]

Also, I'd have to go with option 4. 1-1.5B dollars for increasing speeds nearly 30%, connecting to the same number of bus routes, and serving major areas only seems like a no-brainer. More people are inclined to use transit if it's faster. Even if a line serves more areas, the people in those areas will likely prefer driving due to the time wasted stopping at so many stations.

I can't see the merit in underground east of about Islington. One wonders if the underground spec was deliberately overdone for Options 2-4 with the intent of making them non-starters, leaving option 1 as the sole affordable option. I wonder what the incremental cost and travel time would be with only Islington to Martin Grove underground, with a 5a) option costed for five underground stations and a 5b) option costed for only three (Islington, Kipling, Martin Grove).

- Paul

 

[Streety McCarface]

I'm not worried about this. Peak point ridership will be low because of an abundance of transfer points: Mt Dennis, Eglinton West, Yonge, Don Mills (DRL) and Kennedy.

But we're still not certain of the actual details of RER, especially under this government. The east section may not be that much of a concern, but the west side definitely is. Those traveling downtown would transfer at Mt Dennis and not Caledonia, so there's truly only one transfer point between Pearson and Eglinton West. Even so, at both station's I'd argue that the net influx of riders to the crosstown would be equal to or greater to those that choose to transfer to RER. Remember, Eglinton is a huge employment corridor in the city.

While the abundance of transfer points is great and honestly should be expanded on other rapid transit lines in the city, I don't believe the city should consider unbuilt transfer stations in their traffic studies (when considering loss of riders, gain of riders should be considered for planning the long term viability of the project), especially when the opening date, actual capacity, success, etc of those new stations/lines are completely unknown. I see issues with most if not all of the transfer points on the line that might make them unattractive to users:

Mt. Dennis: Service onto the already overcrowded Kitchener line, and the soon to be overcrowded UPX. It's also a GO station and we don't have the fare integration information necessary to give precise traffic estimates
Caledonia: Same issues as Mt. Dennis, only there are far fewer options for travel along that line — You're either going to Union or north, which I doubt most people are. If you're going to York U, you'd probably be more inclined to transfer at Eglinton west due to ease of transfers, and the fact that you would not need to transfer a second time at downsview park
Eglinton West: Large influx of traffic at the station.
Eglinton-Yonge: Crowding on the Yonge line
Science Centre: We don't really know when or if RLN will be built, and we don't know if and how many people from York Mills Rd, Lawrence Ave, and Sheppard Avenue will transfer from the relief line to the crosstown. If it takes till 2041 to built (the best case scenario), then the crosstown will have been running for 20 years, of which, a lot of development would ensue on the corridor, making it more attractive to businesses not willing to locate downtown
Kennedy: This one is interesting. Again, there are issues with GO, but there's also the crowding issues that will inevitably ensue on the Danforth line. I honestly see a lot of people that currently take Line 2 switching over to Line 5, making it more busy than it would have initially been.

Of course, this is all speculative, but the point is that there's a huge amount of uncertainty with regards to the viability of all these transfer stations. It'll be interesting to see what ends up happening and whether capacity will inevitably be an issue for the line.

 

[BurlOak]

The current trip between Kennedy and the Financial District is 37 Minutes

The same trip using the ECLRT and DRL North will be 32 mins

Using Line 2 and DRL South, its a 30 min trip.

However, when the Eglinton East LRT opens, it will be fastest for passengers from east of Kennedy to stay on the LRT and transfer to the DRL North at Don Mills to get Downtown.

The DRL North, because of it's wide stop space and fast travel times, is going to tremendously speed up travel time between Downtown and a huge swath of Eastern Toronto. Similarly, for passengers in the north east part of the city, the DRL North would get them downtown far faster than the proposed Sheppard subway extension

I don't dispute your numbers, but you said

1. From Kenedy - not from East of Kennedy.
2. until the DRL is open, not after it's open - so it can't be taken if it doesn't exist.

Well, until the Relief Line opens. The Kennedy to Downtown trip will be far faster than it is currently!

 

[Streety McCarface]

I suspect that's a glitch in their model, rather than some real constrain. Could be as simple as them taking a fixed platform size at each station (across all of options 1-4), and calculating their capacity limit based on that fixed platform length/width rather than on the # of vehicles per hour. It wouldn't matter if the platforms can be easily extended; every model predicts the outcomes strictly based on the formal inputs, and is totally oblivious to the broader context.

That said, the western section is unlikely to reach that 5,900 demand level any time soon. They could as well refrain from publishing that capacity limit altogether, as it doesn't really affect the choice of option.

We won't know for sure until some time after the line opens, but at this point, it doesn't seem like ECLRT will have capacity issues soon after it opens.

Longer term, it greatly depends on the implementation of other transit expansion plans. If all transit expansion stalls and no new lines are built, ECLRT remains one of the few relatively dependable transit options, then surely it will hit its capacity limit at some point.

No doubt that it won't likely reach 6K PPHPD for at least a decade, but the point is that when it does, the existing crosstown won't be able to cope with that influx of riders. Even if half of that capacity is reached within the first few years, it'll put significant strain on the section between Mt Dennis and Eglinton West. This section of the crosstown, while it won't be as busy as the central section, will definitely have defined peak times, meaning that it is more likely to reach those capacities faster because much of its ridership will be dependent on commuters.

I'm really hoping the ford government (and any other future governments) don't screw around with this project and those that it will intersect with. It's already cutting it close.

I can't see the merit in underground east of about Islington. One wonders if the underground spec was deliberately overdone for Options 2-4 with the intent of making them non-starters, leaving option 1 as the sole affordable option. I wonder what the incremental cost and travel time would be with only Islington to Martin Grove underground, with a 5a) option costed for five underground stations and a 5b) option costed for only three (Islington, Kipling, Martin Grove).

- Paul

I honestly would have assumed that anything east of Kipling would have been elevated, and would have presumed that anything east of Islington would be elevated. Even then, 1 billion isn't really that much when compared to other underground transit lines in this city. We need to see how Light Rail influences travelers in the city. We've seen that subways (in suburban areas) generally double ridership along the corridor, if surface level Light Rail does just that much, it might be worthy to cut back the amount of grade separation this line receives, if not, that extra 200-300M could be extremely beneficial long term. This is a very basic analysis, but predicting transit ridership is extremely difficult if not impossible so general trends are good enough estimations for us ranting on UT.

Of course, the real benefit of grade separation is the fact that autos, pedestrians, cyclist, and all other surface traffic does not interfere with the light rail, potentially causing delays due to accidents or deaths due to carelessness. If over the life of the grade separated section, say, 100 rail-vehicle/pedestrian crashes are prevented, thats at least 100 million dollars in lost revenue, damaged property, lost productivity, lawsuits, insurance, and rescue operations expenses avoided.

 

[micheal_can]

The current trip between Kennedy and the Financial District is 37 Minutes

The same trip using the ECLRT and DRL North will be 32 mins

Using Line 2 and DRL South, its a 30 min trip.

However, when the Eglinton East LRT opens, it will be fastest for passengers from east of Kennedy to stay on the LRT and transfer to the DRL North at Don Mills to get Downtown.

The DRL North, because of it's wide stop space and fast travel times, is going to tremendously speed up travel time between Downtown and a huge swath of Eastern Toronto. Similarly, for passengers in the north east part of the city, the DRL North would get them downtown far faster than the proposed Sheppard subway extension

When will the DRL begin construction? I suspect that it will not be open to Bloor before 2025. To Eglinton? I doubt it will be before 2035. By that time, those lines and areas will make the DRL not much of a relief.

 

[nfitz]

When will the DRL begin construction? I suspect that it will not be open to Bloor before 2025.

The recently approved funding was for 2 years, to bring it ready to start construction, with the earliest start for construction being in late 2020, targeting an opening date (University to Danforth) of 2029. The next phase wouldn't go to Bloor, but north to Eglinton and perhaps even Sheppard.

I've heard no discussion of any timeframe to extend it to Bloor - or even figure out the alignment west of the emergency exit near John Street.

 

[BurlOak]

I can't see the merit in underground east of about Islington. One wonders if the underground spec was deliberately overdone for Options 2-4 with the intent of making them non-starters, leaving option 1 as the sole affordable option. I wonder what the incremental cost and travel time would be with only Islington to Martin Grove underground, with a 5a) option costed for five underground stations and a 5b) option costed for only three (Islington, Kipling, Martin Grove).

- Paul

There are still no more details on the project website. http://www.eglintonwestlrt.ca/
Although Option 2 says underground, I can't imagine they mean the entire thing (i.e. under the Humber).
Option 3 is a joke (only 3 stops)
Option 4 seems the most reasonable. It would indeed be interesting to know which areas they are actually elevating and putting underground. Then we can know if the option was added seriously, or just to promote the preference of the design team.

 

[crs1026]

^The handouts at the meeting had maps on them, showing the location of the underground portals. I will scan one if they aren’t on the city web site. All three (other than Option 1, obviously) showed the portals in exactly the same locations....roughly Scarlett Road and East Mall.

- Paul

 

[crs1026]

^ Mea culpa. I didn't get that exactly right. There are some differences in the Options. Option 2 is completely tunnelled, Options 3 and 4 are elevated over the Humber. Beyone Renforth, all options have the same mix of elevated and surface.

- Paul

 

[Hopkins123]

^ Mea culpa. I didn't get that exactly right. There are some differences in the Options. Option 2 is completely tunnelled, Options 3 and 4 are elevated over the Humber. Beyone Renforth, all options have the same mix of elevated and surface.

- Paul

View attachment 176088View attachment 176089View attachment 176090View attachment 176091View attachment 176091

Option 4 for the win!

 

[crs1026]

- Paul

 

[nfitz]

Surely Etobicoke is just as deserving as Scarborough. In Scarborough everyone felt it was unfair that there'd be lots of stop on rapid transit, so it's just getting a single new station with a long tunnel.

Etobicoke then should get a 9 km tunnel from Mount Dennis to Renforth, with no intermediate stations. Anything else is clearly just bias against Etobicoke!