Transit City Plan

[fiendishlibrarian]

The Eglinton subway (and it should be a subway) is this generation's R.C. Harris/Edmund Burke-Prince Edward Viaduct-lower-subway-deck moment.

 

[urbanboom]

I think that the current transport needs of Eglinton could be satisfied by the the RT proposal (or even Transit City). But tunneling Eglinton without considering possible subway use is just madness. It may not be today, but one day there will be a dire need for an Eglinton Subway.

That being said, I think we should still build the DRL before we choose to add more feeder lines onto Yonge.

 

[waterloowarrior]

this ideological thinking from Munro/Miller et. al is starting to get annoying and will hurt the future of the city and region. IIRC some of them even wanted to purposely make sure that some of the lines couldn't be upgraded to a subway. Light rail is not the solution for every corridor. DRL is a much needed project. Public private partnerships have seen success throughout Europe (same place with all their beloved trams), and Vancouver's line shows how costs to the taxpayer can be minimized. Madrid and other cities that Metrolinx have studied have shown significant cost saving measures for subways. All the TTC and co. can do is plug their ears and shout "lalalala light rail lalala"

$6-8 billion sounds a bit much for this line as ICTS. At 31KM and $80 mil a KM (what taxpayers payed for RAV), it would cost around $2.5 billion. Cost overruns and a good portion of the funding can be payed by the private sector.

After 10 years of nothing happening and no real leadership, a group finally comes along with a grand vision and all these people can do is criticize it and tear it down.

 

[ShonTron]

The latest costs have gone up. Eglinton-Crosstown, with vehicles included, is now estimated at just over $3 Billion. I can't wait for the EA open houses for that project to start to see exactly what they're planning there.

 

[Filip]

Subway! Subway! Subway! Subway!

Sure... costs will be huge, the project massive, but future generations will praise us for our foresight, just like we praise our old planners for the Bloor line.

I just don't understand this tremendous lack of foresight by TTC planners these days... Streetcars CANNOT solve all problems, and Eglinton + DRL would be ideal candidates alongside streetcars to aleviate many problems..

 

[299 bloor call control.]

There could be significant cost savings as well in building Eglinton-Crosstown with ICTS. Instead of buying a small number of MkII cars for the present SRT, we can create a mass order and lower costs there, continued cost savings due to automated control (screw what the union says), and the ability to tie it in completely with Pearson's elevated rail (which was built with the ability to convert to ICTS operation). Not to mention the one ride from Malvern all the way to the airport and reducing the ridiculousness that Kennedy Station would be if the SRT, B-D, Scarborough-Malvern, and Eglinton Crosstowns all terminated there.

 

[RedRocket191]

Why don't we just look at smaller subways? Knowing the way things work here, I am sure we will most likely end up with the most oversized and overpriced option available, but never the less I feel like we do have other options. For instance, some of the rolling stock used on Paris' subways is ~2.2m in width (vs. ~3.4 er so here). We could shrink the the size of the tunnels, hopefully to single tunnel. The Madrid Metro is a good example of this.

Isn't that 2.2m approaching the width of the scarborough RT?

The way I see it, building the Eglinton subway as an extension of the RT will help mitigate the complaints about forcing a transfer at Kennedy. Passengers will be able to stay on and transfer onto the YUS line at Eglinton or Eglinton West.

Better automation could also cut frequencies in half to address crowding.

 

[299 bloor call control.]

Passengers will be able to stay on and transfer onto the YUS line at Eglinton or Eglinton West.

Good point, it'll also help congestion problems at Bloor-Yonge and overcrowding in general on the B-D

 

[Rainforest]

Rainforest

Demanding a subway on Eglinton out of the full Toronto network context and out of the fiscal context is akin to designing a heavy cart (transit lines) before procuring a horse which can pull it (funding).

The key question is how much capital funding will be available for new transit lines in a set time, say the next 20 or 25 years.

If Metrolinx can deliver the funding for DRL subway, finishing the Sheppard subway, Eglinton subway, and GO train enhancements, then yes, Eglinton subway makes sense.

Otherwise, those projects need to be prioritized. I'd argue that DRL subway is higher priority than either Eglinton and Sheppard.

The relative ranking of the latter two is not obvious. Eglinton will probably have higher usage in the medium turn and run Crosstown, whereas Sheppard will traverse only part of E-W width. On the other hand, Sheppard has already started, and will cost less to complete. Moreover, in a very long turn a subway line across the north of Toronto (not necessarily on Sheppard all the way) may be more important than the one on Eglinton, which is relatively close to the Bloor line and to the North Toronto rail. There are no such alternatives at the Sheppard / Wilson "altitude".

If Eglinton is not a full subway, don't see any benefit in using ALRT / ICTS on it. The capacity of ALRT won't exceed that of a simple LRT in tunnel. ALRT will be faster, but only because it enforces full grade separation. From the network perspective, it will remain as much an orphan as SRT, except now it will be a longer orphan.

A better approach would be to use LRT, but build the central tunneled portion of Eglinton line to handle really long (5 or 6 cars) LRT trains. The outer surface portions will be just for 2 or 3 car trains originally, thus keeping the Phase I costs down. When the line opens, it will be served by small trains that can run in the on-street ROW of outer portions.

If the demand rises in future and an upgrade is needed, then the outer portions can be rebuilt as fully grade-separate (tunnel / elevated guideway / trench dependent on the section) and handling 5 - 6 car trains. The total capacity will then approach that of a standard HRT subway. Since very little work will be required on the tunneled central section (perhaps just remove the shields that had covered the previously unused platform length), the whole line will not need to be shut down for a long time.

 

[waterloowarrior]

it would be interesting to see if the original Eglinton West EA had a ridership study detailing peak period ridership (and compare this to the 9,000 riders estimate from the TTC).... if anyone wants to check, it's available at the library

http://catalogue.torontopubliclibra...rapid+transit+environmental+assessment+report.

 

[ShonTron]

I've never really thought about it until now, but ICTS for Eglinton starts to sound like a neat idea. It really could be part of a city-wide network that could take advantage of a connection to Kipling (using the custom-built platform there), and also, if done right, a DRL could even be done this way, though I know they decided on normal subway in the end to take advantage of its higher carrying capacity. The ICTS line at the airport could allow free inter-terminal rides as well as head out to the CN Weston sub and even Humber College, and connect to Finch LRT.

 

[waterloowarrior]

Steve Munro is really not a fan of Metrolinx and Rob MacIsaac.....
http://stevemunro.ca/?p=943
(he had another post earlier about the organization)

Metrolinx vs Toronto: What To Build on Eglinton

Jeff Gray and Matthew Campbell report in today’s Globe on the potential for conflict between Metrolinx and the TTC over the future of Transit City and, in particular, the choice of technology for the Eglinton line.

I have written at length about this before and won’t rehash the arguments here, but a few remarks in the article deserve comment. Rob MacIsaac parrots subway boosters with this gem:

“If you’re going to travel from one end of that line to the other, we think you’d probably better pack a picnic lunch,†Mr. MacIsaac said.

“We would like to find a way to speed it up for people who are travelling longer distances.â€

And why, he asked, build something that could end up overcrowded?

“There’s little point in spending a lot of money on an LRT line that will end up with passengers whose faces are pressed up against the windows.â€​

Why indeed would someone ride from Scarborough to Pearson Airport or Mississauga when MacIsaac’s own plans call for an express route across the 401 corridor? The whole point of a network is that it must serve a variety of demands — some long haul, some local. Just as we now have GO Transit for commuters from the 905 to downtown, we would also have high-speed services for trips across the 416/905 region.

A trip from Scarborough to Pearson is longer than a trip from Pickering to downtown Toronto, and comparable to a trip from Richmond Hill. Misguided planners and politicians insist on treating it as a local trip that should be stuffed into the TTC network. Having created this straw man, they claim this justifies a full-blown rapid transit line on Eglinton.

As for demand, the TTC’s projection for Eglinton is 9,000 per hour, and this would be on the busy central part of the route that will be underground. Outer parts of the route will easily be within the capacity of surface LRT which has the added advantage of lower cost and more attractive station spacing for local demands.

Despite its protests that its work is only “test casesâ€, not formal plans, Metrolinx is showing its true colours by making technology choices long before they have demonstrated the need for their network schemes. Public consultation is a sham designed to give people a warm fuzzy feeling about Metrolinx rather than engaging them in a real debate.

MacIsaac’s comments about Eglinton show that the real agenda is to push through a major rapid transit project, likely a western extension of the Scarborough RT.

The Metrolinx Board has not met publicly since June 13, and the regional plans were last on the agenda on April 25. Their next meeting is scheduled for late September.

It’s time for the Board to tell the chair to stop musing about network options that are not yet even a draft plan.

 

[confusion]

Eglinton west of the DVP is a nightmare, crippling this city.

If we forget about funding costs...
Anything less than a subway on Eglinton is a shame and will definitely be a short-sighted mistake to future generations. I agree it can be easily compared to the Bloor Line when it was added, if the Bloor Line was scaled back or used a streetcar approach, could you imagine how bad that area would be today?

Besides, why bother building a dedicated Rail Link to Union when you can just run the Eglinton subway to the airport? Use that money for an Eglinton subway!

 

[Whoaccio]

Isn't that 2.2m approaching the width of the scarborough RT?

The way I see it, building the Eglinton subway as an extension of the RT will help mitigate the complaints about forcing a transfer at Kennedy. Passengers will be able to stay on and transfer onto the YUS line at Eglinton or Eglinton West.

Better automation could also cut frequencies in half to address crowding.

Yea, ICTS is definitely about the scale I am proposing. My only beef w/ICTS is the induction motor. I'm no engineer, but I feel that is just a recipe for failure. ICTS scaled vehicles, just running on conventional rail. Nirvana.

 

[Anth]

Steve Munro is really not a fan of Metrolinx and Rob MacIsaac.....
http://stevemunro.ca/?p=943
(he had another post earlier about the organization)

I love how Munro takes the TTC's figures at face value in that post even though he knows the sorry state of their data better than anyone and has spent much energy taking them to task for it on the very same blog. How convenient.