Toronto Ontario Line 3 | ?m | ?s

tiffer24 said:
Ford says one little hint: It's not just going to be a downtown relief line.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1111016758792675328
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Oh jeez, what is this garbage. Seriously. And I'm mostly pointing the finger at Metrolinx on this one. So they have some secret plan, that's totally awesome and amazing, but the public can't see it. That is, until they have control of the subways lol. So childish and ridiculous. A shady agency, bout to get a whole lot shadier.
 
What an ‘alternative’ Downtown Relief Line could look like under the province’s subway upload plan
By May WarrenStaff Reporter
Wed., March 27, 2019
[...]
Montreal, Que.: Le Réseau express métropolitain (REM) public private partnership

This 26-station, 67-km light rail network will link downtown Montreal with suburban communities of the South Shore, West Island, North Shore and the airport. It promises to be electric and completely automated, and will run on the ground, underground and overhead.

The estimated cost is about $6.3 billion, with $2.95 billion of that covered by the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, the province’s leading pension fund company. The governments of Canada and Quebec will chip in another $1.28 billion each, according to La Caisse’s website.

This kind of funding model and independence from the rest of the transit system might be what the province is getting at with its phrasing in the letter, says Siemiatycki.

Ryerson’s Burda agrees the wording could hint at interest in a public-private partnership, or just be punting the project down the line.

“I would hazard to guess that that’s just a placeholder for, let’s find different ways to fund this and build this more cheaply, so that we can prioritize the things we really want to build,” she said.

A regular subway that isn’t exactly the same as the one we have now

This is the option that makes the most sense to Siemiatycki, who suspects the province’s careful language reflects wanting to have a separate project, rather than something that existing TTC subway trains and track could feed into.

This could be operated by the TTC, city or province, and possibly paid for with the help of the private sector, like the REM.

It would offer more flexibility in terms of procurement and operation as it wouldn’t need to be compatible with the existing subway infrastructure.

“I think what they mean is a line that isn’t interconnected and doesn’t have integrated tracks, or even potentially the same train technologies,” he said.
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https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...e-under-the-provinces-subway-upload-plan.html
 
^I can’t recall any prior indication that ML was favouring, or even investigating, any sort of subway or underground construction technology. One doesn’t just pull a technology out of thin air (or even out of a copy of Modern Railways) and declare it the preferred solution.
Verster, in his town hall meetings, has preached the need for doing proper Business Case Analyses for every new project. (He even used that as the reason why some GO projects aren’t moving ahead yet). So, where is the BCA for this new idea? How long has ML been working on it? This may be the first idea ML has put forward without a stream of consultants’ studies having been done.
Perhaps ML is proposing something that one of its senior people have seen or worked on in the past, or it’s something that is a variant of the options that were being worked on for RER, dressed up to remove the Wynne pedigree.
Or maybe it was indeed pulled out of thin air. In which case, the pundits and opposition MPPs and media really need to challenge Metrolinx to demonstrate due diligence.

- Paul
 
Wild guess of what's coming: a REM-style DBFOM plan to build the South and North legs of the Relief Line in one go, perhaps using lighter but still subway-ish technology. And perhaps a couple of south-of-Bloor stations removed to provide a faster "regional" ride to the core.

Like I said, wild guess, but between the lines seems to be heading this way.
 
tiffer24 said:
Ford says one little hint: It's not just going to be a downtown relief line.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1111016758792675328
Click to expand...
We need to pin this quote of "Ford's jaw dropping when he saw Metrolinx's plans". I'll be blunt, this guy is the biggest buffoon of a political leader this country has seen in the past 20 years.

The plan from Metrolinx, to which he's most likely referring to, is some version of GO RER. The biggest hint is when he says "it will travel to other parts". I'll just ignore the part where he says it will move a "couple hundred thousand people" because clearly he has no idea what he's talking about and that part just illustrates exactly that.
 
Here's what's available from Siemens, up and running, first train ran Monday:
ATO (Automatic Train Operation) is already working on five London Underground lines, but it's now come to the National Rail network too.
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Even Toronto might see this some day...maybe not. A city has to wish to embrace change for it to happen.

The article on the newspaper being read in the background of the vid linked above:
[...]
What do you think will have the biggest impact?
I think the thing that will make a huge difference is that by using automatic train operation technology we are able to provide Tube-like frequencies in central London, with a train every two to three minutes through the core. With Crossrail coming, there will be this cross going across London, north/south with Thameslink, an east/west on Crossrail and a huge interchange at Farringdon.
[...]
Do you think the push of the driver-only operation against the unions was too confrontational?
We have had huge numbers of meetings with the trade unions to get them to come with us on this journey. Every independent expert has looked at it and regarded it as equally safe, and safer, as the previous method of operation. It was an important thing to do as it’s supported this wider change we’re making and I’m very sorry unions were unwilling to come on board initially.
[...]
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https://www.metro.news/how-my-rush-hour-revolution-will-turn-rail-hell-to-heaven/991068/
 
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syn said:
The more that comes out, the worse this sounds.
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Considering the amount they've been pouring into their expansive PR/media team I'm sure things have been tailored to sound really good. Unfortunately the majority of it (or simply all of it) just won't be achieved. Definitely not our first rodeo of grand plans. Be wary.

crs1026 said:
^I can’t recall any prior indication that ML was favouring, or even investigating, any sort of subway or underground construction technology. One doesn’t just pull a technology out of thin air (or even out of a copy of Modern Railways) and declare it the preferred solution.
Verster, in his town hall meetings, has preached the need for doing proper Business Case Analyses for every new project. (He even used that as the reason why some GO projects aren’t moving ahead yet). So, where is the BCA for this new idea? How long has ML been working on it? This may be the first idea ML has put forward without a stream of consultants’ studies having been done.
Perhaps ML is proposing something that one of its senior people have seen or worked on in the past, or it’s something that is a variant of the options that were being worked on for RER, dressed up to remove the Wynne pedigree.
Or maybe it was indeed pulled out of thin air. In which case, the pundits and opposition MPPs and media really need to challenge Metrolinx to demonstrate due diligence.
Click to expand...

There was the "surface subway" they offered a glimpse of a few years back. It was only found in a delayed/revised technical doc with little info offered, and sort of emblematic of a detached, political, upper level agency doodling lines. Personally am less optimistic that we'd get something as grand as a surface subway. Likely a bit of revised Don Mills LRT, with their new Oriole station that came out of the shadows to intercept a few hundred riders, mixed with some cockamamie scheme to hike subway fares to reduce crowding. The last one is a key reason people should oppose an upload: local service (of which the subway very much is) will not improve with provincial control. Think higher fares and lower service.
 
Amare said:
We need to pin this quote of "Ford's jaw dropping when he saw Metrolinx's plans". I'll be blunt, this guy is the biggest buffoon of a political leader this country has seen in the past 20 years.

The plan from Metrolinx, to which he's most likely referring to, is some version of GO RER. The biggest hint is when he says "it will travel to other parts". I'll just ignore the part where he says it will move a "couple hundred thousand people" because clearly he has no idea what he's talking about and that part just illustrates exactly that.
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B-D subway has over 500k riders per day.
You think its not possible that this new line will have 1/3 of that?
The DRL projections were about 20k per hour (per direction). You think 10x this in a day is not possible?
 
ssiguy2 said:
A ST 2.0 with a downtown tunnel running catenary RER is a huge lead forward from a stub of a DRL.
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That's true, if it is done right. I think it will need both the downtown tunnel and the East York tunnel, in order to connect to Danforth subway properly, bypass the flood-prone southern end of the RH corridor, and serve the Thorncliffe and Flemmington communities.

There is no good existing rail corridor that can substitute the south-eastern section of DRL. Even if DRL is build as RER, it needs a new route from downtown to roughly Science Centre in order to relief Yonge meaningfully.

If both the downtown tunnel and the East York tunnel can be funded, then a lot of benefits can come from using the existing rail corridors afterwards. One route can join the RH line north of Science Centre, and run to Richmond hill. Another branch can go north-east along the CP midtown corridor towards Agincourt and beyond. And, one more branch split off the tunnal somewhere south of Bloor, and join the Lakeshore East corridor.

In the west, there are as many as 5 potential corridors for RER, hence no new tunnels will be needed west of the downtown section.
 
allabootmatt said:
Wild guess of what's coming: a REM-style DBFOM plan to build the South and North legs of the Relief Line in one go, perhaps using lighter but still subway-ish technology. And perhaps a couple of south-of-Bloor stations removed to provide a faster "regional" ride to the core.

Like I said, wild guess, but between the lines seems to be heading this way.
Click to expand...

Yes, I think this is most probably it.

However, like Montreal's REM, a light DRL metro would also be woefully undercapacity. Projections are 20,000 pphpd, and there isn't a light metro in the world that can accommodate that usage.

Montreal did still select REM though, so there is precedent for this style of short-sighted thinking.
 
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