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

Natika33 said:
I really appreciate the 501 for hop on hop off service & being able to view stores I might want to stop at rather than going blindly through tunnels.

Crazy thought, but what if both the King & Queen streetcars had priority access over cars for the central portions of their routes just on different days of the week? So car traffic would be diverted off King during the work week, then it would switch to car traffic being diverted off Queen during the weekend (but allowed back on King for those two days?)
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I suspect that would just confuse people, and might require a lot of signage and road markings (and HTA/municipal by-laws for soecific intersections) that would be unduly complicated.

There are those who will say "just put streetcar only lanes on both King and Queen" - but that would exacerbate a hugely congested road situation. Sorry, but we do need efficient east-west road access to the downtown as well as better transit. Pick one of King/Queen for road efficiency, and one for transit efficiency. Arguably Queen would actually be better with streetcars as it's the more vibrant street right west to Parkdale.... whereas King is already kind of sterile (relatively) and might be less harmed (relative to today) by a roadcentric character.

Or, do the reverse, as King is slightly less constrained by intersections and is more amenable to lengthening distance between streetcar stops.... and let the trams really fly along that route.

I can see arguments either way, but one or the other would improve either way.

And, if Ontario line were ever extended to Roncy/Queen, perhaps plodding hop-on/hop-off streetcars on both might remain attractive, but ridership might well fall off beyond a cost-benefit point. And pressure for smoother road throughput will only grow with time. Bloor-Danforth didn't keep its streetcars, nor did Yonge. There's a reality check in that.

- Paul
 
nightstreak said:
If they’re going beyond Bathurst from the west or beyond Yonge from the East why would they get on the Queen Streetcar to begin with?
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Because the Ontario line doesn't go where they're going. The line won't even run west of Bathurst on Queen in the first place, and it certainly wouldn't be a smart use of time to head up to line 2 and then use whatever feeder bus is at the nearest station.
 
What if in at least the central core, the streetcar lines were in reserved lanes,without any additional infrastructure?
Keep the streets open for traffic, but no parking or stopping. And, at lights, no left turns?

It would be easy to do and simple for drivers to understand. And be easy to enforce.
 
micheal_can said:
What if in at least the central core, the streetcar lines were in reserved lanes,without any additional infrastructure?
Keep the streets open for traffic, but no parking or stopping. And, at lights, no left turns?

It would be easy to do and simple for drivers to understand. And be easy to enforce.
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also makes for an way for easier conversion to lrt standards and removal of traffic in the future
 
T3G said:
Because the Ontario line doesn't go where they're going. The line won't even run west of Bathurst on Queen in the first place, and it certainly wouldn't be a smart use of time to head up to line 2 and then use whatever feeder bus is at the nearest station.
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You’re describing all of Etobicoke. Today.

If you’re on the west end anywhere east of Roncesvalles and would prefer to submit yourself to the masochism of riding in transit in mixed traffic instead of taking a short bus to a subway line that runs across the entire city, then you could take the King 504 or Dundas 505 whichever is closer to you on Queen.

If you’re going anywhere after Bathurst, and you’re sitting on the 501, then you’re on the wrong streetcar, my friend. This streetcar is turning south on Bathurst towards Exhibition Station — but good news, the next stop is King-Bathurst station and you can take Line 3, one… two.. three or more stops to continue heading east.

If youre going way farther east, say to Riverdale, then you took one long streetcar to transfer to Line 3 for the rest of your journey.

People transfer lines to get to where they’re going. They walk between subway stations. Welcome to Living on a subway… today.
 
CapitalSeven said:
A few people are not going to conform to the quickest theoretical trip scenario, especially when they experience the very long transfers at Yonge and Osgoode. I lived in Hong Kong and frequently took the tram or double decker just to enjoy the view and avoid the crush of the subway.
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Prague is the same. The existence of crosstown metro routes in no way resulted in the extinction of long crosstown tram routes, too, even though very few people use them to travel from one end of the city to another.

Cutting the 501 in the central section would be a complete own goal.

nightstreak said:
taking a short bus to a subway line that runs across the entire city,
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And those connecting buses don't sit in traffic?

nightstreak said:
in mixed traffic instead of taking a short bus to a subway line that runs across the entire city, then you could take the King 504 or Dundas 505 whichever is closer to you on Queen.
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The shorter your journey is, the less sense it makes to do so. And you are making a faulty assumption by assuming everyone in this discussion is making long crosstown journeys, sometimes they're short to medium length journeys where transferring doesn't make any sense at all.

I'll give you some examples from Google Maps transit planning as of right now:

-Roncesvalles to Yonge and Queen: 38 minutes by 501 vs 51 minutes by 504 -> 2 -> 1 or 53 minutes by 47 -> 2 -> 1
-Dufferin to Parliament: 38 minutes by 501 vs 53 minutes by 29/929 -> 2 -> 65
-Bathurst to Leslie: 43 minutes by 501 vs 1 hour by 511 -> 2 -> 31 or 57 minutes by 511 -> 2 -> 83
-Bathurst to Church*: 21 minutes by 501 vs 31 minutes by 505 and it refuses to even give me options for going up to Bloor Street

Examples like this will continue to exist post-OL. The asterisked journey is exactly the kind of straight-shot journey you are proposing to nix post-OL, even though the idea that it will be faster to go via the OL makes no sense. There will be a subset of the population for whom it makes sense to transfer to a subway to continue their journey, and another subset of the population for whom it will make more sense to remain on the streetcar. And that's to say nothing of the mobility challenges some people face that will make it impractical for them to traverse the 823 meters between Spadina and University, or the 820 meters between Yonge and Sherbourne, on a street that is lined with small shops and is definitely not suburban style fly-over country. Unless you are envisioning turning Queen Central into a dingy traffic sewer a la Richmond or Adelaide?
 
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