Toronto Ontario Line 3 | ?m | ?s

This map in the report caught my eye, because it's so weird. Never seen Toronto presented with Yonge north of St Clair as directly N/S. Usually and logically it's the other way around. But it seems as if to make this misrepresentation look aesthetically pleasing, the E/W roads were skewed to run directly perpendicular to Yonge north of St Clair (when they don't). Just seems odd, like a lot of work went into making this have the appearance of being geographically accurate (when they could've simply made it geographically accurate).

View attachment 113323

There seems to be some kind of tilt added as well, the whole thing is kinda weird. Not complaining, it's just different.
 
This map in the report caught my eye, because it's so weird. Never seen Toronto presented with Yonge north of St Clair as directly N/S. Usually and logically it's the other way around. But it seems as if to make this misrepresentation look aesthetically pleasing, the E/W roads were skewed to run directly perpendicular to Yonge north of St Clair (when they don't). Just seems odd, like a lot of work went into making this have the appearance of being geographically accurate (when they could've simply made it geographically accurate).
It's schematic, and obviously compressed and misaligned from a truer projection, my guess is that it was intended for internal use, but note "Relief Line Subway North *Conceptual alignment Subject to further study". There's no blurb related to the asterisk, not to mention that the depicted alignment is "conceptual".

Someone connected will be publishing a critique on this shortly. Watch for Steve Munro or the usual journos to have some comment on it. Bear in mind that this is a Metrolinx publication...Il Duce will have had (to quote himself) 'some input on it'. This was very carefully crafted, and not by planners.

Just reading the last few posts gone up while I was composing this one. Yeah, this was a bit of a bomb to flush out reactions. Anyone care to opine on how Tory et al are going to react to it? Anyone then care to guess as to how far ahead of Tory the QP spin meisters are? I bet they already have 'talking points' prepared.

I'm absolutely no fan of Il Duce, but he seems to be playing Tory like a puppet, and Topo Tory just dangles right along.
 
Last edited:
There seems to be some kind of tilt added as well, the whole thing is kinda weird. Not complaining, it's just different.

Well there'd be a tilt regardless to show Toronto's grid system as being straight NS/EW, which is about 16deg. But what they've done here seems a bit offputting (and worthy of my complaint). A lot of work went into making Toronto's grid be as perfectly perpendicular as possible...that is, for the original city. It was a big deal for early planners and engineers. Even in the early 20th when creating present day Bloor, the dip at Parliament was desired to be as straight as possible using a series of bridges (which ended up being dropped).

With this map however the old city looks wonky (when it's not), but present midtown, North York, and York Region are shown with the proper perpendicular grid system (when they don't have one). They could've simply presented it as a schematic, or as geographically accurate. But instead they used what appears to be an actual base map, but contorted it eight ways to sunday.
 
And what makes you come to that conclusion? They've committed to studying the Relief Line. That's it.

I have no inside info its just a gut feeling. Why split the route into two different development groups if you don't intend to do something now. Why not just study the south portion and be done with it? My gut tells me the province sees it will be difficult to get it all done if the city is leading (would Crosstown be this far along if the city was in charge? I doubt it). I suspect the province expects the city to pay its fair share for the south portion and the province will pay for the north portion entirely. And it will be built all at once and it will be one subway line. Expect an announcement by Wynne (in Don Valley West?) before the next election. That's how I read it.
 
I have no inside info its just a gut feeling. Why split the route into two different development groups if you don't intend to do something now. Why not just study the south portion and be done with it? My gut tells me the province sees it will be difficult to get it all done if the city is leading (would Crosstown be this far along if the city was in charge? I doubt it). I suspect the province expects the city to pay its fair share for the south portion and the province will pay for the north portion entirely. And it will be built all at once and it will be one subway line. Expect an announcement by Wynne (in Don Valley West?) before the next election. That's how I read it.

Or better yet, politically the province need to be seen as bringing home the bacon for the competitive inner 416 burbs. You have already seen normally cautious politicos at the city level (e.g. DWM who is going to be running for the PCs in all likelihood) signing its' praises and jumping on the bandwagon.

AoD
 
And I still dont get why this stops at Sheppherd with Seneca College north of the site. That will be a huge missed opportunity imo.

I don't think there would be any significant ridership to Seneca. Hardly anyone goes there from downtown. Most students live in the apartment buildings and secondary rentals around the campus or Sheppard & Don Mills.

With this map however the old city looks wonky (when it's not), but present midtown, North York, and York Region are shown with the proper perpendicular grid system (when they don't have one). They could've simply presented it as a schematic, or as geographically accurate. But instead they used what appears to be an actual base map, but contorted it eight ways to sunday.

It just looks distorted - either by accident or so they can put more of the Sheppard East LRT on there as a "committed rapid transit project"
 
Probably an error made by some office worker.

It's obviously more than a simple error or accident. Again, all the roads in their basemap have been meticulously adjusted. It isn't just Yonge north of Eglinton being tilted to become straight N-S, but every E-W road from the lake to 16th was isolated then rotated ~xdeg to look perpendicular. Whoever created this took time to make North York and York Region's transportation network have the appearance of being neat and squared but the core area skewed and ajar (when the complete opposite is the case).

So much effort to make it look geographically accurate when the could've made it geographically accurate, or used one of their many existing schematics. I dunno, to me it just stands out. Never seen a map of TO like this.
 
Phase 1 should at least extend west to connect with the Lakeshore line perhaps at Bathurst, which would also provide a stop at the busy Entertainment District.
 
It's obviously more than a simple error or accident. Again, all the roads in their basemap have been meticulously adjusted. It isn't just Yonge north of Eglinton being tilted to become straight N-S, but every E-W road from the lake to 16th was isolated then rotated ~xdeg to look perpendicular. Whoever created this took time to make North York and York Region's transportation network have the appearance of being neat and squared but the core area skewed and ajar (when the complete opposite is the case).

So much effort to make it look geographically accurate when the could've made it geographically accurate, or used one of their many existing schematics. I dunno, to me it just stands out. Never seen a map of TO like this.

I think that it's just you who notices these things, most other people haven't spent as many untold hours hunched over maps of Toronto, trying to make fantasy maps with varying degrees of schematisation/geographic accuracy.

Phase 1 should at least extend west to connect with the Lakeshore line perhaps at Bathurst, which would also provide a stop at the busy Entertainment District.

It's surprising to me too that they don't reach Bathurst, the official boundary of downtown. Spadina and Bathurst are both very dense and connect to high ridership lines, they would be very useful stops. It's bizarre that they're planning to reach Sheppard before they reach Spadina.

Maybe it's because they don't want to pre-empty a decision on the "Union Station Satellite West" proposal that Metrolinx has, in case the DRL needs to swing south to service that. Or maybe it's just because the DRL's present focus is on relieving the Yonge line to make room for York Region riders on the Yonge line extension. Or maybe because extending it west into Toronto to relieve the King/Queen streetcar isn't part of their "regional" mandate. It seems like the Province is letting Toronto take the lead on parts of the city that are thorniest in terms of community activism/NIMBYism and urban design, while they concentrate on the more suburban stretches that point towards the 905.
 
It's surprising to me too that they don't reach Bathurst, the official boundary of downtown. Spadina and Bathurst are both very dense and connect to high ridership lines, they would be very useful stops. It's bizarre that they're planning to reach Sheppard before they reach Spadina.

I don't get why people here don't understand why the DRL won't be going to Seneca College, Bathurst, Dundas West or Hamilton anytime soon. We'll be lucky to get Osgoode to Don Mills in our lifetime. A lot of money just to build that. Yes it would be great to go further but we can't get everything all at once.

And its not bizarre reaching Sheppard first. Its the relief line after all. RELIEF OF THE YONGE LINE! Its not designed to get people to Seneca faster (even though it will do that). Its not designed to help people get around downtown (even though it will do that). Its designed to get people off the Yonge line and the best way to do that is to go to Don Mills. Rather simple.
 
I don't get why people here don't understand why the DRL won't be going to Seneca College, Bathurst, Dundas West or Hamilton anytime soon. We'll be lucky to get Osgoode to Don Mills in our lifetime. A lot of money just to build that. Yes it would be great to go further but we can't get everything all at once.

And its not bizarre reaching Sheppard first. Its the relief line after all. RELIEF OF THE YONGE LINE! Its not designed to get people to Seneca faster (even though it will do that). Its not designed to help people get around downtown (even though it will do that). Its designed to get people off the Yonge line and the best way to do that is to go to Don Mills. Rather simple.
By that logic, the Relief Line should terminate at Union Station then. Not saying the current alignment is bad, just pointing out a flaw in your statement.
 
Not really @Leo_Chan. Where Yonge needs the most relief.

slack-imgs.com.png


Don Mills to Osgoode will take care of the issue quite nicely.
 

Attachments

  • slack-imgs.com.png
    slack-imgs.com.png
    252.5 KB · Views: 1,100

Back
Top