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

[Allandale25]

The website/app Ratio.City has added the Ontario Line and the Relief Line South to their site. It's free to register and view (other aspects of the site like seeing development applications requires a subscription).

https://twitter.com/x/status/1156187149114445824

On the site, look for "Transit" and then click on "Proposed Transit" to expand the tab. You can then turn on/off the OL and RLS. The circles around the stations represents 800 metres I believe.

 

[BurlOak]

This is complete BS.

Toronto's Transit Future Changes Following City Council Debate

"Initially, a compromise of running the Eglinton LRT on the surface through the wide, suburban stretch of Eglinton east of the Don Valley, while extending the Sheppard line one or two stops to Victoria Park was put forward by Stintz and other councilors opposed to the Ford plan. This was rejected by Ford and allies, leading to yesterday’s meeting."

Council attempted to work with Ford, offering a solution to lower the cost of the Eglinton line and an extension to the Sheppard Line. He rejected it all.

As Mayor, Ford showed a consistent inability to work with others. He showed a consistent inability to compromise. It's also quite clear that he was completely unfit for office (crack video, drunken stupors, Sandro Lisi, etc.).

The idea that Ford had a wonderful plan that was ruined by everyone else is nonsense.

As for the DRL, it's a critical piece of infrastructure. If they're going to dramatically reduce capacity in favour of cost savings, then maintaining a transfer at Kennedy to "reduce cost" should be a no-brainer.

Your right, that was a BS attempt at compromise - it was actually more of an insult.
Ford wanted Eglinton Grade separated.
Ford wanted STC connected to the rest of the system.
Ford wanted a Sheppard subway to STC at a later date.
This achieved maybe 1/5 of 1/3 of what Ford wanted. And it was only made after they had already threatened Fords plan.

The transfer LRT was a garbage plan. Essentially, the only travel pattern was for people to transfer to B-D, and then again at Y-B. It caused more traffic at the busiest station in the system. The Ford Eg-Scar LRT would have distributed the load better between Y-B and Y-E, and would have been the impetus for a DRL to at least Eglinton. Those that killed the grade-separated Eglinton plan were the most anti Relief Line people in the City - whether they actually knew it or were just too blinded by their Ford rage to notice.

 

[JSF-1]

Your right, that was a BS attempt at compromise - it was actually more of an insult.
Ford wanted Eglinton Grade separated.
Ford wanted STC connected to the rest of the system.
Ford wanted a Sheppard subway to STC at a later date.
This achieved maybe 1/5 of 1/3 of what Ford wanted. And it was only made after they had already threatened Fords plan.

The transfer LRT was a garbage plan. Essentially, the only travel pattern was for people to transfer to B-D, and then again at Y-B. It caused more traffic at the busiest station in the system. The Ford Eg-Scar LRT would have distributed the load better between Y-B and Y-E, and would have been the impetus for a DRL to at least Eglinton. Those that killed the grade-separated Eglinton plan were the most anti Relief Line people in the City - whether they actually knew it or were just too blinded by their Ford rage to notice.

Why do you always leave out that Fords idea would have come at the expense of the Finch West LRT line. Etobicoke is a transit wasteland compared to Scarborough and it seems we were once again content with telling Etobicoke residence that Scarborough is more important; it happened in the 80's and Ford was ready to do it again. The Finch West LRT is under construction today because we realized Etobicoke needs it and we can build it, and Etobicoke will be a much better place for it. You can keep on revising history though and act like Fords plan was without flaw.

This isn't like the 90's where we could only afford one line and ended up barely building 1. No, we could afford the FW, EC, and SLRT, and hell we could merge the EC and SLRT together while preserving the FW; but no Ford was fueled by his made up "War on the Car'' decided to put the car on a pedestal and the opinions of those who won't use the EC. The guy even said we should bury the FW, that is a level of insanity we are operating on here.

 

[syn]

Your right, that was a BS attempt at compromise - it was actually more of an insult.
Ford wanted Eglinton Grade separated.
Ford wanted STC connected to the rest of the system.
Ford wanted a Sheppard subway to STC at a later date.
This achieved maybe 1/5 of 1/3 of what Ford wanted. And it was only made after they had already threatened Fords plan.

The transfer LRT was a garbage plan. Essentially, the only travel pattern was for people to transfer to B-D, and then again at Y-B. It caused more traffic at the busiest station in the system. The Ford Eg-Scar LRT would have distributed the load better between Y-B and Y-E, and would have been the impetus for a DRL to at least Eglinton. Those that killed the grade-separated Eglinton plan were the most anti Relief Line people in the City - whether they actually knew it or were just too blinded by their Ford rage to notice.

Their plan would've connected STC to the rest of the system. They simply wanted to put a portion above ground and provided funding for a Sheppard Extension and the Finch West LRT. Ford could've countered but he refused. That's the point. He doesn't work well with anyone, which is why virtually nothing got done during his term in office.

The LRT was a 'garbage plan' if you're only looking at it from the perspective of people headed downtown. Only 23% of transit trips starting in Scarborough end up downtown. The LRT offered far greater access (7 stations) along with greater potential for future expansion. It was also a lot cheaper and would've left Eglinton available for a transfer free Eglinton East extension.

The transfer is fine given the cost difference. People have to transfer all the time. If I want to go to Yonge and Eglinton, I have to get off the train and transfer to another one. It's the norm.

In any case, maintaining a transfer at Scarborough to save billions makes a lot more sense than reducing capacity on the DRL/OL. Maximum capacity is critical for this line . It's a foundational piece of infrastructure. The SSE is not.

 

[gibsonm]

C’mon, if the Ontario Line gets built, especially if Smartrack, all the planned LRT lines, and GO RER is built, we’ll finally have a transit network worthy of this booming city. I wouldn’t worry too much about capacity issues right now, because if Toronto added 77000 people last year, continues this pace, and doubles its population by 2060, you can bet that the city will have additional lines. Right now the city is already bigger than Chicago and on a trajectory to become larger than LA. The planned lines should serve us well, if built within in the planned time frame, until the mid-2030’s, at which point we’ll be planning or building more lines.

 

[syn]

C’mon, if the Ontario Line gets built, especially if Smartrack, all the planned LRT lines, and GO RER is built, we’ll finally have a transit network worthy of this booming city. I wouldn’t worry too much about capacity issues right now, because if Toronto added 77000 people last year, continues this pace, and doubles its population by 2060, you can bet that the city will have additional lines. Right now the city is already bigger than Chicago and on a trajectory to become larger than LA. The planned lines should serve us well, if built within in the planned time frame, until the mid-2030’s, at which point we’ll be planning or building more lines.

The mid 2030s is only 15 years away. What you're saying is that the OL will already be in need of support/upgrade 5-8 years after it's built.

GO improvements will be a lot more difficult with this line taking up GO capacity.

There's a simple solution to this - build the full DRL as it was intended.

 

[robmausser]

If we're drawing lines on maps, and SkyTrain-capacity is what we're talking about, why not combine Ontario Line, relief-line long, Sheppard subway east, part of the existing Line 3 and a Line 3 east extension to Malvern to get the most out of this. Circuitous yes, not ideal no, but more of a possible reality if Ontario Line goes ahead as planned? (and yes this has a mid-town GO)View attachment 196874

I dont mind this at all, except you missed the potential for a mega interchange at Agincourt.

 

[W. K. Lis]

...
The LRT was a 'garbage plan' if you're only looking at it from the perspective of people headed downtown. Only 23% of transit trips starting in Scarborough end up downtown. The LRT offered far greater access (7 stations) along with greater potential for future expansion. It was also a lot cheaper and would've left Eglinton available for a transfer free Eglinton East extension.
...

Transit City was to provide rapid transit for the non-downtown and non-downtown bound people. For people who were not going downtown, but to provide rapid transit in the old cities (and borough) of Metropolitan Toronto, so you can get from one part of the old suburban cities to another. Just as people within the old city of Toronto can get from one part of the old city to another part of the old city.

 

[Streety McCarface]

The website/app Ratio.City has added the Ontario Line and the Relief Line South to their site. It's free to register and view (other aspects of the site like seeing development applications requires a subscription).

https://twitter.com/x/status/1156187149114445824

On the site, look for "Transit" and then click on "Proposed Transit" to expand the tab. You can then turn on/off the OL and RLS. The circles around the stations represents 800 metres I believe.

View attachment 196879

Why on earth is the Relief Line south catchment much smaller than that of the Ontario Line? No one is going to walk more to get to the Ontario Line over the Relief line, they're both rapid transit.

Transit City was to provide rapid transit for the non-downtown and non-downtown bound people. For people who were not going downtown, but to provide rapid transit in the old cities (and borough) of Metropolitan Toronto, so you can get from one part of the old suburban cities to another. Just as people within the old city of Toronto can get from one part of the old city to another part of the old city.

Which is why it was great for lines like Finch West, Jane, and the Waterfront LRT, and the fact that the latter two aren't being studied in depth is concerning. We'll have to see, but at the very least, Eglinton and Don Mills should have been subway lines from the get-go.

 

[syn]

Why on earth is the Relief Line south catchment much smaller than that of the Ontario Line? No one is going to walk more to get to the Ontario Line over the Relief line, they're both rapid transit.

Which is why it was great for lines like Finch West, Jane, and the Waterfront LRT, and the fact that the latter two aren't being studied in depth is concerning. We'll have to see, but at the very least, Eglinton and Don Mills should have been subway lines from the get-go.

It was. Then it was canceled and filled in during construction.

I didn't have a problem with Eglinton as it will be useful for a long time.

 

[44 North]

Seems pretty clear that anything following the rail corridor open-air would have to be elevated. This was concluded thirty-five years ago with a rail corridor alignment (an option rejected back then and in the RLS studies). So the notion of cross-platform interchanges, a big talking point of Verster's, appears to be moot. It'd be an elevated structure above the already elevated rail embankment, i.e - a non-level transfer.

 

[sixrings]

It was. Then it was canceled and filled in during construction.

I didn't have a problem with Eglinton as it will be useful for a long time.

I don't have a problem either with Eglinton and I live on Eglinton directly beside a station which I intend on using. If one day we need more capacity then Lawrence should get it's own LRT. We make things more complicated than they really need to be.

 

[syn]

I don't have a problem either with Eglinton and I live on Eglinton directly beside a station which I intend on using. If one day we need more capacity then Lawrence should get it's own LRT. We make things more complicated than they really need to be.

I'm sure Finch residents are looking forward to their LRT too.

Once they extend Sheppard, Toronto will have plenty of east-west capacity.

 

[Allandale25]

Why on earth is the Relief Line south catchment much smaller than that of the Ontario Line? No one is going to walk more to get to the Ontario Line over the Relief line, they're both rapid transit.

It's my understanding from the authors of the Ratio.City map that you are correct, the circles around the OL stations and the Relief Line South Stations are indeed not the same. This is for no real reason other than Relief Line has 500m as that was MTSA area referred to in Growth Plan at the time we created last year, and they created 800m for Ontario Line because that’s what is used in the Metrolinx + Infrastructure Ontario OL report.

Update: the map author let me know that they updated the site with 800m buffers around all transit stations for consistency and remove confusion.

 

[A Torontonian Now]

Spotted this passive-aggressive transit ad by the City during my commute this week: