Toronto Ontario Line 3 | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx

I'm worried about Science Centre Station on the Ontario Line, looks like an annoying connection as it's a bit far from Eglinton, it's actually on Wynford Drive. So from what I know, I'd have walk all the way to the south end of the platform, go down the stairs or exit the station entirely to enter the Line 5 bus terminal, go down again to the pedestrian tunnel, walk under Eglinton Avenue and a bit more to the LRT. That's a 4-minute walk for a connection. I don't like it, and it's ironic we are allowing this, but Scarborough's getting an entire subway extension because of a bad connection.

I actually think the Ontario Line be tunnelled here, this would've made more sense to tunnelled than the other places that people were NIMBYING about. It allows a better connection for riders, and it increases development potential.

And if you say that this connection is fine, it just isn't. This is one of the important stations on the line as it's the terminus, an interchange, numerous buses, and we are half-assing it. So why can't we do it right the first time??
Yea it's not on wynford^ it's on the north side of Eglinton so people getting off at the front of a train will have a decent trek to get to line 5 but as long as they have some escalators running all the way to line 5 platform level it shouldn't be too bad. Can't be worse than Kennedy anyways lol
 
You mean they are going to alternate which platform they are using? I would have thought they would drop passengers at northbound platform, proceed to a tail track and then pull into the southbound platform.
met-ops-terminal.gif

met-ops-loop.gif

met-ops-siding.gif

From link. Just in case someone missed the earlier presentation, back in this thread at https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/ontario-line-was-relief-line-south-in-design.6155/post-1638042 in January of 2021.
 
Last edited:
If side platforms are being used at the terminal station, there's going to be a lot of confusion and frustration as riders would be going up the wrong set of stairs for the next train to be sitting on the opposite platform, or as the train departs the platform you're about to board and have to traverse to the other side unlike other traditional terminal stations (At least Keele and Woodbine had different platforms for trains going to different destinations when they originally opened).
Sheppard-Yonge is a terminal station with only one side platform in use. So it's not unprecedented. But as others have said, most likely they'll have a northbound and southbound platform and use the tail tracks to change which tracks the train is on. Montreal does this with at least some of their terminal stations (Cote-Verdu for example). Also you can set all the escalators from the disembarking platform to go downstairs, and the ones on the embarking platform to go upstairs, which helps indicate which direction people should go (also signage can indicate that people shouldn't go up the stairs to the disembarking platform)
 
Here's hoping train announcements on the Ontario Line don't get verbose like those on the MARTA in Atlanta:


The MARTA train announcements are very verbose in both English and Spanish.
I can't see it being much different from the current TTC Subway.
 
Unlike the TTC, train announcements on the MARTA announces nearby destinations, as well as general messages in both English and Spanish.
I meant on the Ontario Line. I don't really see a reason why the Ontario Line would have different announcements from the TTC, or at the very least the Eglinton Line.
 
I meant on the Ontario Line. I don't really see a reason why the Ontario Line would have different announcements from the TTC, or at the very least the Eglinton Line.
The provincial owned lines are required to be bilingual. TTC is just contracted to operate them. I would be more surprised if we don't hear any French on the Crosstown LRVs.
 
Here's hoping train announcements on the Ontario Line don't get verbose like those on the MARTA in Atlanta:


The MARTA train announcements are very verbose in both English and Spanish.
Verbose announcements are great if it means there are many transfer options. If only Toronto had announcements like this one:
 
That's not the reason why they're no longer doing side platforms. The reason why is because of cost. It is much cheaper to build island platforms when your tunnel is being dug twin bores, so you end up only having to build 1 elevator and one set of stairs to the platform rather than 2. The reason why Science Center and the other elevated stations are side platforms is because for elevated stations the opposite is true. When the tracks are on a guideway placed closely together, it is far easier to build side platform stations where you don't have to build extra supports just to separate the tracks to fit an island platform between them. As a result, Science Center, Exhibition, and the other elevated stations will be side platforms. As a counter example, its extremely likely that SSE will be built with a single large mega bore, so as a result we might see the SSE stations have side platforms since the tracks are already close together in the tunnels. Its all about cost, nothing more.
If side platforms are being used at the terminal station, there's going to be a lot of confusion and frustration as riders would be going up the wrong set of stairs for the next train to be sitting on the opposite platform, or as the train departs the platform you're about to board and have to traverse to the other side unlike other traditional terminal stations (At least Keele and Woodbine had different platforms for trains going to different destinations when they originally opened).
Vancouver also does this, as do some other places where high frequencies are operated, this way you don't block outbound trains with trains pulling into the terminal half the time. Allows for higher frequencies.
 
park-1-e1616078065166.png


When Paula Fletcher released a rendering of what she thought the noise wall and environs would look like, she was justifiably accused of presenting an extremely biased take.

With this rendering it seems like she wasn't completely off.

You're still going to have a large visible wall, and this is a Metrolinx rendering so you know it's a best case scenario.

Like everything else, it seems the truth will lie somewhere in the middle.

Given how things go in this city I'd have to seriously question what they have planned with regards to landscaping, especially with comments like this:

"Wherever possible, noise walls will be surrounded by trees, plants and attractive landscaping to enhance the appearance of the space for the community. This approach will soften the appearance of noise walls that will shield the area from the new Ontario Line as well as existing GO and VIA services."

It seems as though this will be more intrusive than Metrolinx originally suggested.
 
Last edited:
park-1-e1616078065166.png


When Paula Fletcher released a rendering of what she thought the noise wall and environs would look like, she was justifiably accused or presenting an extremely biased take.

With this rendering it seems like she wasn't completely off.

You're still going to have a large visible wall, and this is a Metrolinx rendering so you know it's a best case scenario.

Like everything else, it seems the truth will lie somewhere in the middle.

Given how things go in this city I'd have to seriously question the kind of landscaping, especially with comments like this:

"Wherever possible, noise walls will be surrounded by trees, plants and attractive landscaping to enhance the appearance of the space for the community. This approach will soften the appearance of noise walls that will shield the area from the new Ontario Line as well as existing GO and VIA services."

It seems as though this will be more intrusive than Metrolinx originally suggested.
This actually looks really nice though. This gives this nice urban feel that urbanists constantly try to push to create without creating transit service that is absolutely terrible. I'd want to go to a park that had this at the far end, this looks nice and walkable. Meanwhile Paula's render was "Here are some 18th century industrial design where everything looks like Ellesmere Station".
 

Back
Top