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

DarnDirtyApe said:
IMHO Corridor D edges out B slightly because it will (mostly) negate the need for some riders to transfer from the DRL to join Line 1 peak flows. It's not a big deal if someone in the AM transfers from DRL to Line 1 NB to get to Queen, but the reverse (Queen->King) will have a negative impact on SB capacity. Don't underestimate riders' willingness to transfer for just one stop!
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I have to disagree with this. Dundas Station is by far the most used station on Line 1, south of Bloor. The biggest trip generator here is presumably the Eaton Centre and Ryerson. The benefit of Corridor B (Queen Street) over D is that it will provide direct access to the Eaton Centre and City hall, while putting riders only a few minutes walk away from Dundas Street and the Financial District. Option B (Queen) is the best option for serving these two major destinations.

With Corridor D, you'll be serving the Financial District, at the cost of failing to serve the major destinations at Dundas.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
I have to disagree with this. Dundas Station is by far the most used station on Line 1, south of Bloor. The biggest trip generator here is presumably the Eaton Centre and Ryerson. The benefit of Corridor B (Queen Street) over D is that it will provide direct access to the Eaton Centre and City hall, while putting riders only a few minutes walk away from Dundas Street and the Financial District. Option B (Queen) is the best option for serving these two major destinations.

With Corridor D, you'll be serving the Financial District, at the cost of failing to serve the major destinations at Dundas.
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I know it's not apples to apples, but Union+King+St. Andrew ridership has 224,900 daily riders whereas Queen+Dundas+St. Patrick+Osgoode has only 174,200. The Financial District is most definitely a higher trip generator than Eaton Centre + Ryerson and it is also more centred around the peak period. I find that Queen & Dundas are actually busier around 6-7 than 5-5:30PM.

Union alone is 114,800 where Dundas+St. Patrick is 97,220. In order to maximize diversion away from Line 1 the DRL needs to be within walking distance of the office buildings near Union and Southcore as many riders will not be within the catchment area of SmartTrack/RER.

https://www.ttc.ca/PDF/Transit_Planning/Subway_ridership_2013.pdf

Also, Queen to Dundas is a long-ish walk (6 minutes per Google Maps) so riders will mostly transfer to Line 1 anyway rather than walking. If the DRL intersects with Queen you're going to have a transfer point at stations where the Line 1 trains are still very full.
 
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Good point about the ridership concentration. I was using the daily usage figures.

Keep in mind that many of the riders using Union are unlikely to use to Relief Line, since many would be transferring on from GO
 
Luckily for me I ride from Woodbine to St. Andrew and back every day during rush hour so I have a good understanding of where the demand lies. Of course, it is completely coincidental that I would personally benefit from Corridor D. :)

I am noticing many more people boarding Line 1 trains at Union (to St. George) in the AM rush. I would imagine that many are either transferring from the streetcar or walk-ins but hard to know where they're coming from or going, exactly. That being said there are still more trip generators within walking distance of King/Wellington.

The King/Wellington alignment also has better extension potential to the west, as King West (and south of King) is now much more built up than Queen. There could even be a station at John street to reflect the growth in that area and take some demand off the 504.
 
Get off the DRL at King and you can walk to Queen or Front; get off the DRL at Queen and you can walk to King but Dundas is too far.
 
DarnDirtyApe said:
Get off the DRL at King and you can walk to Queen or Front; get off the DRL at Queen and you can walk to King but Dundas is too far.
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Huh. It's not much farther at all. The distance from Dundas to Queen is about 450m. The distance from Queen to King is about 400m.
 
I know, but it feels a lot further and the street/PATH layout isn't as conducive to walking. If you get off at Queen SB and want to go northeast to Ryerson you have to cross under the tracks, go outside and walk up Yonge. If you get off at King you can go directly to most destinations via the PATH and getting to street level is easier. Maybe it's just me...
 
Queen to King feels shorter than it is because you have Adelaide and Richmond in between. It is shorter than to Dundas though.

I did the walk between Dundas and Adelaide for lunch many many times over the school year. It is not a large ask, but it is longer than subway for sure. I am not sure it is relevant though because Queen alignment his all the important nodes like the highly walkable Eaton Centre.

I am absolutely certain that it is quicker to walk to your destination at say Scotia Bank Plaza than it is to transfer and wait for a train.
 
There is a lot to be said positively about either a Queen or a King alignment. Either would be a great boon to the city.

When it comes down to corridor selection (and if Corridor B and D are the contenders, as I suspect), then the choice is likely to come down to how the line affects the Jarvis to Broadview area. I personally believe that a King alignment is more favourable for this stretch, but I'm open to be swayed either way.
 
I'll agree that a Queen alignment could work if really develops into something with several stations and frequent service, but I'm not sure I see that happening as soon as we'd all like. I just don't know where the money is going to come from to build, let's say, 6 or 8 miles of two tunnels across the south part of the core. Not to speak of the political will. Toronto is in the process of deciding to spend three billion on subway and road projects it doesn't need.

And yes, I consider the Queen and King streetcar routes transit. They are local transit. The problem is that they are currently underserviced and trying to do too much with too little. Having subway and RER lines to relieve them would bring the quality of service back and balance out the overloading in the central portion of the routes.
 
Duck said:
Why tunnel? Monorail could be built for a fraction of the cost, in a fraction of the time. Oh that's right, because if it's not heavy subway, it can't possibly be a serious transportation solution. How silly of me.
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New drinking game: take a shot whenever this guy proposes a monorail.
 
Consider that the DRL is intended to eventually become a fat "U" eventually too, in further extensions to the west.

A Queen alignment would bring a lot of people between Bloor & Queen within walking distance of either subway. A King alignment would work too, but would be a much further walk for residents living exactly in the center between King and Bloor (away from the "U" of Bloor-Danforth). A good north-south spacing between the Lakeshore corridor (especially with future infill stations), the DRL corridor, and the Bloor corridor, would geographically be good idea for future westward expansion. But I can see King is a better alignment for other reasons (e.g. PATH).

But of course, there's pros and cons, depending on what we're trying to do. Will we keep or remove part of a streetcar route, for example (i.e. the one that the subway goes underneath)?
 
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Every potential station along a Queen Street alignment would be high-density and have trip-generators close by:

Roncesvalles - St Joseph Hospital, shopping district, major interchange with GO and streetcar routes to the west
Jameson - apartrment buildings extend all the way up the street to Queen and West Lodge (just north of Queen) has that large building complex as well
Dufferin - major interchange with GO/RER; several condos; Gladstone Hotel
Ossington - Drake Hotel; CAMH; Art and Design District
Niagara - Trinty-Bellwoods Park, several apartments on Stanley; condos/townhouses near Strachan/Queen
Bathurst - Alexandra Park priority neighbourhood; several office buildings near Bathurst/Richmond
Spadina - Fashion District, Chinatown south
Osgoode - MuchMusic, OCAD, Opera House
Bay-Yonge - City Hall, Sheraton Centre, Eaton Centre, Financial District, St Micheal's Hospital
Jarvis - Moss Park, with a PATH connection easy walk of George Brown College
Parliament - Regent Park apartments, easy walk of Cabbagetown
River - north end of West Don Lands; GO connection
Broadview - condos, Riverside shopping district
Carlaw - lots of gentrification potential; major transfer for points east along Queen/Kingston

We'd ignore all this to route a DRL underneath a mere few hundred metres north of the rail corridor (King or Wellington); which is already getting a subwaylike service in SmartTrack. Like someone here said before, we risk the same quagmire as the Scarborough Subway vs. SmartTrack debate whereby the lines route too close to each other and thus directly compete with each other for ridership.
 
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