micheal_can
Senior Member
Not if the trains were 10 times longer and interlined with Line 2.....
Richmond Hill Yonge Line 1 North Subway Extension | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx
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Not if the trains were 10 times longer and interlined with Line 2.....
Jonny5
Senior Member
Also the north of Steeles segment is supposed to include a new yard somewhere off Yonge which is kind of necessary since it's already complicated running almost all trains out of Wilson. It would be even worse to manage opening and closing service with an extension north of Finch without a new yard there.
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asher__jo
Active Member
Agreed. A natural terminus/transit hub/interchange, the suburbs of the GTA aren't the suburbs of Toronto. Eventually line 2 should be extended into Mississauga..
micheal_can
Senior Member
And line 4 should end up on Oshawa....
asher__jo
Active Member
That's what GO is for.
micheal_can
Senior Member
Think about it, if the subways filled in between the GO Stations, and the GO was a RER, and there was proper fare integration, it would do much for the Highway 2 corridor. If you look at the way Line 4 lis pointing, it could naturally keep going to Oshawa.
Hopkins123
Senior Member
Hard to say where precisely the real natural end is since the urban sprawl extends up Yonge St at least to about the Bernard Terminal. Generations from now I could foresee people wanting to build the Yonge Line as far as Elgin Mills. Beyond that is lunacy, and even to that point, quad-tracking south of Finch may have to become a necessity at exorbitant costs.
micheal_can
Senior Member
An LRT following Yonge St north would make sense, but a Subway? I doubt there would be enough ridership to warrant that. Now, if you get rid of the Greenbelt laws, then extending the subway further north would make sense.
JSF-1
Active Member
There's an obvious law of diminishing returns when it comes to how far a subway line should extend. This can be slightly mitigated if the line can run an express service, however our Line 1 can't, so there is only so far north the line can go before the sheer number of stops and over all distance the train would have to make becomes unappealing to the average rider. I look at the line going to Richmond Hill Centre as the absolute maximum extent line 1 can go before we hit the law of diminishing returns. To me the upper limit for a Subway ride that riders will tolerate is about 1 hour, after that your going to start loosing potential riders because other means (i.e. the car) become far more convenient.
north-of-anything
Active Member
If Line 1 was extended all the way north to Newmarket, I would still take the GO.
In my opinion, a rough outer loop including Hurontario, Highway 7, and the Rouge River should be considered the farthest any TTC rail line is built to. Beyond that, and it would be much more suitable for the local city's transport network to fill in the gaps.
In my opinion, a rough outer loop including Hurontario, Highway 7, and the Rouge River should be considered the farthest any TTC rail line is built to. Beyond that, and it would be much more suitable for the local city's transport network to fill in the gaps.
micheal_can
Senior Member
This is why GO RER and proper fare integration is needed. If you take the subway to the nearest GO station, get on it, express into near where you are going, and then subway to your final destination, then it makes sense to extend lines forever.
I could see Line 2 going into Mississauga and Line 4 going into at least Pickering. East and west, there is no real gap in sprawl, and a subway could densify the area.
JSF-1
Active Member
GO RER itself could become a sort of secondary subway system if it was built up and run like commuter systems you see in Europe and East Asia. RER has the advantage of being more flexible in that it can run both Local and Express services while the Subway can't. GO RER has the potential to be both a great local subway like service and also an Express commuter service connecting people in the far flung areas of the suburbs where riding Local trains into Downtown just becomes a waste of time.
micheal_can
Senior Member
Which is why ending Line 1 at a GO station is a smart move.
Gary Benner P. Eng.
New Member
Comments in reply:
1. To accommodate north/south tracks in a single bore would require a bore diameter of approximately 12 m. This is a very large tunnel that would require an expensive custom tunnel boring machine instead of almost off-the-shelf standard tunnel machines for the North American Standard 6.2 m. The shafts would also have to be longer and deeper. The larger bore would make it much more difficult to find the "tunnel window" through all other existing infrastructure.
2. I am aware of the emergency exit requirements. They can be found in the link below. I do not believe the cross passage connections between the twin tunnels is considered an emergency exit. The emergency exits have to be within 762 metres of a station or other exit. This is a challenge for the deep tunnels I am proposing but I have some ideas of where they might go. This is one requirement that may have to be looked at for the long, deep tunnels. I doubt the BART system under San Francisco Bay has emergency exits to meet TTC/Metrolinx standards but they have been operating safely for decades. I think for a single bore, it would be the same requirement. http://www.metrolinx.com/en/docs/pd...Design Standards and Construction Methods.pdf
3. Generally, you try to avoid tunnelling under existing tunnels but when that is your window in a crowded city that is where you go. There is no standard that I am aware of for a vertical separation distance - the more the better so that instrumentation can detect potential lost ground from the mining to allow remediation before it impacts the tunnel above. In my proposal, the new tunnel is under the existing tunnels from Front St. to Wellesley Ave. On this section, the new tunnels are deep in the shale bedrock and there is little risk to the subway operating overhead. Crossings of the Bloor-Danforth line is 90 degrees and again in shale.
The proposed Express line would pass beneath the new Crosstown at 90 degrees with sufficient clearance. North of Eglinton Ave. to Hoggs Hollow and again from North of York Mills Rd. to Steeles Ave., the Express tunnel would be approximately 20 metres below the existing subway (it varies), which is a good separation. The crossing of the Sheppard line would again be at 90 degrees.
TJ O'Pootertoot
Senior Member
2 quick thoughts, which probably duplicate things others have said, at least to an extent:
1) Probably this should be in a thread of its own since, even if it goes beyond the fantasy stage, it's a separate project.
2) I like the concept, at a high level, but have a lot of questions about the actual execution. The "problem" is that by creating a totally separate express line, you're forced to locate the tunnels and then the stations away from the existing line and not necessarily where they otherwise make the most sense. So, for example, a Hogg's Hollow station and a Mt. Pleasant-area station make far less sense than stops that interline with the existing Sheppard and Crosstown lines. I suppose that helps people get from A to B but it doesn't necessarily facilitate other policy goals when it comes to intensification, an integrated transit network etc.
I guess we can all spitball where we think stops would make sense.... off the top of my head, I think (assuming the approved extension goes as is), an "Express" service would stop at RHC, Steeles, Finch, Sheppard, Eglinton, St. Clair, Bloor, DRL/Queen and Union. That probably DOESN'T make sense in terms of the practicalities of engineering, but it does make sense in terms of service. So that's the inherent conundrum here, I think.
So, to sum up, maybe the problem is just that I haven't wrapped my head around the notion of this as something entirely different but I think that any express line basically has to offer easy opportunities to transfer both to the "local" Line 1 service (e.g. Maybe you take express from Steeles to Eglinton and then transfer to get to Lawrence or Rosedale) and to the E/W services (Crosstown, Sheppard, Line 2, DRL) or it doesn't make much sense.
1) Probably this should be in a thread of its own since, even if it goes beyond the fantasy stage, it's a separate project.
2) I like the concept, at a high level, but have a lot of questions about the actual execution. The "problem" is that by creating a totally separate express line, you're forced to locate the tunnels and then the stations away from the existing line and not necessarily where they otherwise make the most sense. So, for example, a Hogg's Hollow station and a Mt. Pleasant-area station make far less sense than stops that interline with the existing Sheppard and Crosstown lines. I suppose that helps people get from A to B but it doesn't necessarily facilitate other policy goals when it comes to intensification, an integrated transit network etc.
I guess we can all spitball where we think stops would make sense.... off the top of my head, I think (assuming the approved extension goes as is), an "Express" service would stop at RHC, Steeles, Finch, Sheppard, Eglinton, St. Clair, Bloor, DRL/Queen and Union. That probably DOESN'T make sense in terms of the practicalities of engineering, but it does make sense in terms of service. So that's the inherent conundrum here, I think.
So, to sum up, maybe the problem is just that I haven't wrapped my head around the notion of this as something entirely different but I think that any express line basically has to offer easy opportunities to transfer both to the "local" Line 1 service (e.g. Maybe you take express from Steeles to Eglinton and then transfer to get to Lawrence or Rosedale) and to the E/W services (Crosstown, Sheppard, Line 2, DRL) or it doesn't make much sense.