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

[nightstreak]

This doesn't seem at all realistic. There's always going to be a certain group of passengers who will need to travel from one side of the "divide" to the other, and despite the mixed traffic stretch, there's no way it will be more economical, time wise, to get out, travel into the deep caverns Metrolinx calls stations, wait for a train, then climb out of said cavern elsewhere and wait for another vehicle to resume their journey, unless there is a massive surface disruption.

We've begun to see a move away from this hard line of thinking of Yonge as being an impenetrable boundary with the 996 Wilson Express being extended all the way into Scarborough, it would be a big step backwards to start doing that with the streetcar lines now, especially with the idea that there would be no surface transit, period, between Bathurst and Victoria. Not everyone will be able to walk the distances between those stations.

At most, what I could see happening is two routes/branches with overlapping segments, like they did with the 504, say, Neville - Bathurst and Humber - Parliament, or something to that effect.

Having multiple transit options is good.

Torontonians' mental transit routing is hardcoded for streetcars as "long distance" but streetcars aren't adequate for long distance unless they're in a dedicated ROW and I don't think you're expecting Queen Street to become a dedicated streetcar ROW nor should be expecting the 501 to maintain its frequency, running directly above a subway route. The demand to fill a large vehicle at today's frequency will not be there. Looking back today, taking the 501 across a huge distance in mixed traffic is going to seem insane when there are much faster connections underground in the future.

We default to a streetcar cross town because there hasn't ever been a rapid and comfortable cross downtown route. See how many people quickly migrated from nearby (and not so nearby) routes to the 504 during the King Street Pilot (nearly 100,000 a day when the median had been 55-60K). The same will happen when a cross downtown subway becomes a viable alternative.

The role of downtown streetcars is going to evolve into filling in the blanks in the system, connecting the subway network to voids between stations, overlapping but not paralleling the line. See Spadina 510. Thought of as a N-S line but connects Line 2 (Spadina station) then travels W-E to Line 1 (Union) via Queens Quay or Bathurst 511 that will connect Line 2 (Bathurst), to Line 3 (King-Bathurst) to Line 3 again (Exhibition) — another N-S > W-E route.

I can see the 501 evolving into 2 routes 501-E and 501-W that loop through the Ontario line in both E-W and N-S directions like Bathurst 511 and Spadina 510, filling in the blanks downtown while the subway serves the purpose of longer distance hops to different parts of the city where you'd get on a streetcar or bus for more local destinations.

This might not happen on day one but as rider routing behaviour changes, the perpetually cash-strapped TTC is going to be hard pressed to maintain a large vehicle running parallel to a subway line.

 

[T3G]

Torontonians' mental transit routing is hardcoded for streetcars as "long distance" but streetcars aren't adequate for long distance unless they're in a dedicated ROW and I don't think you're expecting Queen Street to become a dedicated streetcar ROW nor should be expecting the 501 to maintain its frequency, running directly above a subway route. The demand to fill a large vehicle at today's frequency will not be there. Looking back today, taking the 501 across a huge distance in mixed traffic is going to seem insane when there are much faster connections underground in the future.

People think of streetcars as being for long distance because that's how the route network is designed.

I think that you're overstating just how transformative the Ontario line will be. We're not building a network here, it is one line, and it will have its target audience in the areas where it travels, but will be near useless for most of the city outside of there, and therefore other forms of transit will need to be maintained. It's difficult to get stop link times for the 501 between Bathurst and Victoria (the two stops you chose as the termini for the 501 post-OL in your previous post), because the diversion creates extra time, but on average it takes the 505 and 506 between 15 and 20 minutes to travel between Church and Bathurst, so let's extrapolate that to Queen. Are you telling me it's going to take less time than that to ditch the eastern half of the 501 at Victoria, descend into the station, wait for the next train, travel across, get out at King and Bathurst, and then wait for a 511 northbound to get to Queen (+possibly waiting for a western 501 to resume your journey further across)? That seems distinctly unlikely.

We default to a streetcar cross town because there hasn't ever been a rapid and comfortable cross downtown route. See how many people quickly migrated from nearby routes to the 504 during the King Street Pilot (nearly 100,000 a day when the median had been 55-60K). The same will happen when a cross downtown subway becomes a viable alternative.

And yet, we didn't shut down the other routes in the areas where King runs parallel in a transit mall. By your logic we should already have been able to cut the 501 at Bathurst and Parliament, and force everyone into using the 504 in the central section of downtown, but we didn't.

I recommend you read up on some European cities and see that the existence of crosstown subways doesn't preclude the existence of crosstown tram routes.

This might not happen on day one but as rider routing behaviour changes, the perpetually cash-strapped TTC is going to be hard pressed to maintain a large vehicle running parallel to a subway line.

That's not what is being proposed here. The Ontario line will run parallel to the 501 for a short distance, and be nowhere near it for a far longer distance.

 

[nightstreak]

I think that you're overstating just how transformative the Ontario line will be.

Respectfully, I think you're grossly underestimating the effect a downtown subway will have on blowing up established rider behaviour. Simply taking cars off King Street got people switching their solidified routes virtually overnight. Surveys done during the King Street Pilot showed people taking the 504 instead of the 501 (4 city blocks away) once the King car became reliably fast. Think of how those habits will change once people already on Queen have a subway under their feet.

We're not building a network here, it is one line,

We are building a network. The Ontario Line is introducing four (4!) interchange stations to the existing network and two bus and regional rail terminals at East Harbour and Exhibition Station that will connect bus, GO and streetcar routes serving the east and west of the city. That's a network!

it will have its target audience in the areas where it travels, but will be near useless for most of the city outside of there

It's unapologetically a downtown line — once called the Downtown Relief Line — and there will be connecting routes on its edges. Downtown will be well serviced with no need to duplicate downtown service with high capacity vehicles directly above a subway underground when those from the East and West will have faster ways to travel through (under) downtown to get to the opposite far edges of the city.

Are you telling me it's going to take less time than that to ditch the eastern half of the 501 at Victoria, descend into the station, wait for the next train, travel across, get out at King and Bathurst, and then wait for a 511 northbound to get to Queen (+possibly waiting for a western 501 to resume your journey further across)? That seems distinctly unlikely.

You aren't extrapolating rider routing changes that will come from the existence of this line. You can't just tack on today's behaviours and routing to a future where riders have new and better options.

Someone in Riverdale for example isn't going to hop on the 501 to travel to Victoria, then get on the subway, take that to Spadina, then get off and get on another streetcar. No, they'll get on the subway at Riverside/Leslieville, arrive at Spadina a lot quicker than they do on the 501 today, then take a streetcar to the rest of their route. If they're going further west, they might go all the way to Exhibition Station and take a connecting GO train, bus or streetcar from there, possibly a future 501 variant that departs Exhibition Station goes up Dufferin then west along Queen.

There are of course other alternatives for those going much further west, with 2 changes on the subway which is common on networks in Europe with many lines. Ontario line to Osgoode, up line 1 to St. George, then across to the western edge of the city on Line 2.

Ultimately riders are going to find themselves with new options, whether they're going downtown or bypassing it entirely and going to another part of the city. Their behaviours will absolutely change, there's no question about it. The Ontario Line is going to be extraordinarily disruptive to rider patterns and as an effect, the role of streetcars will need to change as well, otherwise they risk being seen as redundant.

 

[nightstreak]

The trees to be removed
View attachment 700585

This is the terribly sad side effect of the Ontario Line construction. Toronto's already insufficient downtown tree canopy is being decimated.

Hard to tell in this leafless winter shot but there was a beautiful 30foot tall tree overhanging the fence and sidewalk. Looks to be at least 5 decades old. There was some work done under the sidewalk related to the Ontario Line and the roots of this tree were in the way. So they just cut it down.

It's the one in near the fence:

Metrolinx and this Ford government are making no accommodations for trees in their plans in an effort to bulldoze through everything to avoid extra work. There was a mature tree that wasn't even near the Osgoode North excavation, about 10 feet away from where the tent ends, but some of its branches were in the way of assembly of the tent so they didn't think twice of putting the entire tree through the wood chipper instead of trimming off some of its branches.

Osgoode Garden is the only respite of green space in the core and it's being taken away, tree by tree. I'm afraid that anything near the fence is going to get cut down by the time work is done.

 

[crs1026]

I could live with a new paradigm where we sacrifice the 501 to autos and buses, in exchange for a more dedicated (and enforced) expedited transit zone on King. The current mixing of modes is not working on either street.
What happens to the streetscape may determined more by density and development than the retention of streetcars. While today’s built form is mixed use with a great many storefronts providing small scale retail and commercial, redevelopment seems to abandon this in favour of fewer larger stores mostly placed on corners. That trend forces out many of the eclectic retail attractions in favour of big drug stores and bigger box grocers - bigger rents, more gfa per store, and sucks a great deal of the vibrance out of the streetscape.
Much of Queen West has heritage district protection and those restrictions may limit that trend, but I am not optimistic that keeping the 501 will help much.

- Paul

 

[KhalilHeron]

Though i'd like to see the 501 stay, or at least wait to see how it's usage shifts post Ontario line opening, i think a partial closure of the line could share the king priority corridor while still maintaining good connections to the ontario line

 

[TOtramz]

Funneling even more streetcars on the same corridor doesn’t sound smart to me, there’s already capacity issues on the existing streets. Fully eliminating streetcars off of queen street would definitely reduce capacity through the core, which could be useful if the Ontario line has a shutdown for whatever reason.

I think what will happen is that the people able to replace taking 501 will do so, and the 501 will remain for whoever still needs it for local trips or making a trip that can’t be made on the Ontario line

 

[nightstreak]

I could live with a new paradigm where we sacrifice the 501 to autos and buses, in exchange for a more dedicated (and enforced) expedited transit zone on King. The current mixing of modes is not working on either street.
What happens to the streetscape may determined more by density and development than the retention of streetcars. While today’s built form is mixed use with a great many storefronts providing small scale retail and commercial, redevelopment seems to abandon this in favour of fewer larger stores mostly placed on corners. That trend forces out many of the eclectic retail attractions in favour of big drug stores and bigger box grocers - bigger rents, more gfa per store, and sucks a great deal of the vibrance out of the streetscape.
Much of Queen West has heritage district protection and those restrictions may limit that trend, but I am not optimistic that keeping the 501 will help much.

- Paul

I think a series of routes could be found to maintain the 501 (though with individual route numbers) for local service.

East: Neville Park, connecting to Riverside-Leslieville (Line 3) along Queen to Victoria, connecting to Queen Station (Line 1 and 3), south to Adelaide then back to Queen at Church. Alternatively, it could go as far as York Street to give it yet another connection at Osgoode, then down York to Adelaide and back to Queen at Church.

West B: Humber to Bathurst, connecting to King-Bathurst station (Line 3), south to Fleet St and terminate at Exhibition Station (Line 3)
West B: Humber to Spadina, connecting to Queen-Spadina station (Line 3), north to Spadina station (Line 2)

Central Ring option A) - King/Queen Loop: Queen and York connecting to Osgoode Station (Line 1 and 3) to Bathurst, down to King-Bathurst Station (Line 3), west to York and back up to Queen (would require tracks between King and Adelaide).

Central Ring option B) McCaul loop up to College, East connecting to Queens Park Station (Line 1) onwards to Bay, down Bay to Queen (would require tracks added south of Dundas) steps away from Eaton Centre and Queen Station (Line 1 and 3), then along Queen connecting to Osgoode (Line 1 and 3) and along Queen to McCaul.

This would give coverage to every part of the 501, ensure that more of downtown has easy access to Line 3 and give a streetcar on Downtown Queen purpose that doesn't duplicate the subway while improving frequencies on existing streetcar corridors. The Streetcar would be taking on a supporting feeder and local stop role, while the Ontario Line takes its inevitable spot as the primary cross downtown rapid mass transit.

 

[nfitz]

I think a series of routes could be found to maintain the 501 (though with individual route numbers) for local service.

East: Neville Park, connecting to Riverside-Leslieville (Line 3) along Queen to Victoria, connecting to Queen Station (Line 1 and 3), south to Adelaide then back to Queen at Church. Alternatively, it could go as far as York Street to give it yet another connection at Osgoode, then down York to Adelaide and back to Queen at Church.

West B: Humber to Bathurst, connecting to King-Bathurst station (Line 3), south to Fleet St and terminate at Exhibition Station (Line 3)
West B: Humber to Spadina, connecting to Queen-Spadina station (Line 3), north to Spadina station (Line 2)

Central Ring option A) - King/Queen Loop: Queen and York connecting to Osgoode Station (Line 1 and 3) to Bathurst, down to King-Bathurst Station (Line 3), west to York and back up to Queen (would require tracks between King and Adelaide).

Central Ring option B) McCaul loop up to College, East connecting to Queens Park Station (Line 1) onwards to Bay, down Bay to Queen (would require tracks added south of Dundas) steps away from Eaton Centre and Queen Station (Line 1 and 3), then along Queen connecting to Osgoode (Line 1 and 3) and along Queen to McCaul.

This would give coverage to every part of the 501, ensure that more of downtown has easy access to Line 3 and give a streetcar on Downtown Queen purpose that doesn't duplicate the subway while improving frequencies on existing streetcar corridors. The Streetcar would be taking on a supporting feeder and local stop role, while the Ontario Line takes its inevitable spot as the primary cross downtown rapid mass transit.

I don't see how a short 501 detour is going to speed it up. It's going to add mileage running up and down to Queen that negates any gains.