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

jje1000 said:
I really wished the city came up with a comprehensive transit masterplan kind of the same way it has the zoning masterplan.

Right now there's too many studies and they're all fragmented.
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AlvinofDiaspar said:
It wasn't a coherent plan - it's a let's take everyone's favourite pet project chop suey.

Toronto is truly riddled with scale politics problems.

AoD
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DonValleyRainbow said:
If that were 100% true, the Scarborough Subway would have been on there.

There was lots of analysis and consultation on the Big Move, and it created a regional blueprint. It should be the blueprint that Toronto follows. It's not perfect, and it is open to revisions. But it's a somewhat coherent master plan, and that should guide our work. But Toronto politicians are dragging us away from that blueprint, and inserting their pet projects into it.

As it relates to the Relief Line, the corridors for Relief Line-Short and -Long are on there. The transition between subway and LRT is at Pape/Bloor though, when we're talking about having it at Don Mills-Sheppard.
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We don't need another regional transit blueprint. Just about all of Toronto's major transit expansions, perhaps with the expansion of Waterfront transit, were identified corridors in The Big Move. We know where the transit needs to go - the problems are a matter of political prioritization and consistent funding.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
We know where the transit needs to go - the problems are a matter of political prioritization and consistent funding.
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And ending stupid rear view mirror debates which we are experts at here. Outside of Toronto and New York City, there are zero subways under construction in North America. Toronto is the fourth largest city on the continent and you'd think we were having a debate about Minneapolis (has LRT), Buffalo (has LRT) or Salt Lake City (has LRT). I wonder how many people here have a grip on reality. It's like the DVP and its 6 AM to 11PM perma-traffic jam does not exist. It's as though rapid transit and not MASS transit is the issue. No LRT in the universe is going to make a dent in traffic on the DVP or provide an ounce of relief to the Yonge SUBWAY. These are self-evident truths to any sentient being who is not an official or self-proclaimed transit expert.

In baseball, "if you build it, he will come" is a joke, but if you build it, they will come may be less goofy than it sounds. I'd subway five days a week if I could get to Don Mills from Gerrard Square. I'm not the only person who would gladly trade keys for a Presto Card. We'll have a hard time convincing residents of Markham to trade keys for a Presto card as the LRT dipsey-doodles down Don Mills. I can hear the crickets now...

I thought the point of public transit was to provide VIABLE alternatives to cars. No matter how lovely LRT technology is - and it's great in a place like Cologne Germany which has a million residents and it forms the backbone of the city's transit system, in a form very much like ECLRT with both underground and above ground, but separated ROWs, LRT technology is not up to the job of replacing the DVP in people's commutes. Spending money fantasizing otherwise is pointless.

But I may be wrong, and widening the DVP may be better option when the slow LRT is quickly subsumed by demand. And climate change, well we built the LRT to help with that...
 
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TransitBart said:
And ending stupid rear view mirror debates which we are experts at here. Outside of Toronto and New York City, there are zero subways under construction in North America. Toronto is the fourth largest city on the continent and you'd think we were having a debate about Minneapolis (has LRT), Buffalo (has LRT) or Salt Lake City (has LRT). I wonder how many people here have a grip on reality.
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I see your point about needing higher order transit to relieve Yonge, but when you say "there are zero subways under construction in North America" you've opened a Pandora's box of pedantism for all the transit nerds on this site. Does the Central subway count, for instance?

smallspy said:
Los Angeles, Montreal and Vancouver would beg to differ.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
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Montreal has nothing under construction except bus lanes, and those won't be open until 2022...

And Vancouver's broadway extension now has funding (pending provincial election fallout with the minority Liberal government), but it definitely isn't under construction.

Kitsune said:
@smallspy Vancouver's subway is just the skytrain entering a tunnel... if that counts as Subway then Calgary's Green Line does too.
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There's no functional difference between Vancouver's skytrain and Toronto's subway from a user's perspective: completely grade-separated, above/below ground. I don't know enough about Calgary's green line to say if it would count too but from a search it looks as though drivers and pedestrians cross paths with it.
 
@aquateam Calgary's LRT is either grade separated or is crossed by roads using RR gates - even when the line is the middle of a road. There is still some wrangling whether or not the Green line will be Eglinton style or like the rest of the system, but at the very least it will be low floor trains. The West line has a subway portion complete with one underground station, and part of the line trenched.
 
Kitsune said:
Vancouver's subway is just the skytrain entering a tunnel... if that counts as Subway then Calgary's Green Line does too.
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"Subway" = sub- + way, as in subterranean and route.

Back when people wanted to put the Queen streetcars underground, that was called the "Queen Street subway". When you go to Chicago, they don't call anything "subway" except for the two underground line segments downtown.

What Vancouver has is definitely a subway. Eglinton is definitely a subway west of Leslie. Putting one stop underground is more debatable.

But besides that point, "there are zero subways under construction in North America" is just wrong, even if you only consider "heavy rail" to be a subway - New York just opened the first phase of its own "relief line" with the second phase planned to open in around ten years. Mexico City is also expanding its subway system.
 
donmillsalignmentdec73c.jpg


Found on Munro's site: https://stevemunro.ca/2008/12/30/where-would-a-don-mills-subway-go/
 
Kitsune said:
@smallspy Vancouver's subway is just the skytrain entering a tunnel... if that counts as Subway then Calgary's Green Line does too.
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Except for, you know, the absolute requirement for grade separation and a closed off right-of-way on the Skytrain - which, incidentally, is just like the requirements for the vast majority of subways. The Green Line will have its own right of way, but will feature level crossings.

aquateam said:
Montreal has nothing under construction except bus lanes, and those won't be open until 2022...

And Vancouver's broadway extension now has funding (pending provincial election fallout with the minority Liberal government), but it definitely isn't under construction.
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Montreal has the planning and much of the design done, and is simply waiting for funding. That's further along than most of the plans in other places - including whatever will be the next line built in Toronto after these two are done.

And you're right, the Broadway Extension hasn't really started in earnest yet. But they have the funding for it, which is more than we can say about most other projects.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
smallspy said:
Montreal has the planning and much of the design done, and is simply waiting for funding. That's further along than most of the plans in other places - including whatever will be the next line built in Toronto after these two are done.

And you're right, the Broadway Extension hasn't really started in earnest yet. But they have the funding for it, which is more than we can say about most other projects.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
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The context was "under construction" though. And it's not clear if for Montreal you're referring to the blue line extension to Anjou or to the REM. REM has had public consultations, but doesn't really have much design work done, and it actually does have funding from the Province and Caisse, just waiting for a federal contribution.
 
aquateam said:
The context was "under construction" though. And it's not clear if for Montreal you're referring to the blue line extension to Anjou or to the REM. REM has had public consultations, but doesn't really have much design work done, and it actually does have funding from the Province and Caisse, just waiting for a federal contribution.
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To be honest, I was referring to the Blue Line extension, although the REM certainly sounds like it may fit the requirements as well.

But yes, while the shovels are not yet into the ground - nor are they in Vancouver - all of those projects are positioned quite well to get work started quickly. Certainly more so than in Toronto beyond the TYSSE and Crosstown, and almost any other city.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
steveintoronto said:
Then by that definition Eurotunnel and many other heavy rail full gauge trains are 'subways'.
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Using that definition, the central part of the Edmonton LRT and the northern part of the Buffalo MetroRail are "subways."

However, neither Edmontonians nor Buffalonians call the underground portion of their LRT lines "subways."
 
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