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Transit Fantasy Maps

No, Sean, look! Brampton gets a streetcar! That's way better than some lousy subway.

Doady, have you gone with the DRL routing that's elevated along the east side of High Park? I don't think residents/friends of the park would ever let that get built. I used to be a real partisan of the Roncesvalles routing, but I've come around to the routing north on Dufferin to the rail corridor, and then northwest along the rail corridor to Dundas West.
 
I just put the Hurontario subway far enough north so that my bus route, 39 Britannia, can connect to it. ;)

And also I don't have to transfer from subway to LRT when going into Brampton.

unimaginative2 said:
Doady, have you gone with the DRL routing that's elevated along the east side of High Park? I don't think residents/friends of the park would ever let that get built. I used to be a real partisan of the Roncesvalles routing, but I've come around to the routing north on Dufferin to the rail corridor, and then northwest along the rail corridor to Dundas West.
Click to expand...

Yeah there was this TTC document online that had this map that showed the three possible alignments and I just chose the one along Keele/Parkside.

Anyways, I hope you guys don't find too much that you disagree with! I think you guys influence me too much. I even changed the Milton line diversion to go under Hurontario after opposing it for long. :(
 
doady said:
Anyways, I hope you guys don't find too much that you disagree with! I think you guys influence me too much. I even changed the Milton line diversion to go under Hurontario after opposing it for long. :(
Click to expand...

I certainly don't disagree with much! It's a fantastic map. With a system like this, especially the regional routes, Toronto would be on a par with the best in the world. Like I said, the only significant change I'd suggest would be switching from Keele/Parkside to either Dufferin/Rail Corridor or Roncesvalles. I love the Square One diversion, too! I like how you took the RT extension ROW and used it for regional services.
 
i don't really see the need for 4 N/S subways in the core, particularly if there is already a DRL in place. I imagine that much of the overcrowding on Yonge would divert to the DRL and with a more effective regional system, people would rely less on subways to get around.

It's a beautiful map though!
 
Amazing work, doady!

I like the clear delineation between R,S and T lines, with colour coded stations rather than lines. If we are going to have 3 different levels of rail service with multiple lines, this will be the most effective way to present it on a map.

I would probably let the Bay-Spadina-Allen line link up with Summerhill station (you've called it Shaftesbury). This would avoid the HUGE bottleneck of transfering from Bay to Yonge and continuing up on the Yonge line. Alternatively, consider routing the line up Jarvis or Sherbourne to serve the rapidly growing east side of downtown rather than Bay. I also think that an alignment up Roncy rather than Keele would be more effective, especially because one side of Parkside is, well, an undevelopable park.

otherwise, this is the best one I've seen. Good work, again!
 
The Dufferin alignment fo the DRL is the cheapest of all but takes away space from the multitude of regional rail lines that converge there: Milton, Georgetown (Kitchener?), Bolton, and Barrie.

I put the DRL along Parkside/Keele instead of Roncesvalles so that route 89 could be completely eliminated. Otherwise the alignment only affects the Howard Park station. Yes, this DRL doesn't serve Roncesvalles Village, but it does serve Junction Gardens. The alignment is also cheaper and allows the King streetcar route to remain as is.

Speaking of the King streetcar, you might have noticed that it, along with the College, Dundas and Queen streetcars, all have ROW's on the map and this can be acheived by adding a third track on all those streets (north side for Dundas/King and south side of College/Queen) and making them one-way for regular traffic. All these streetcars will still travel in both directions but at the side of the streets instead and you can see this on the map if you look closely.

I am not sure how the Bay Line would connect to Bloor when there is the Lower Bay station. I suppose it doesn't have to be directly under Bloor or maybe there is another solution...

The real reason the Hurontario Line ends at Britannia because residential development is not allowed between Matheson and the 407 because of the airport.
 
Prometheus The Supremo said:
doady, i can't open your pdf file. :(
Click to expand...

Why? Is there an error message?

I just tried downloading it myself and it works fine for me. You need Adobe Reader version 7.0 or better, and version 7.0 is what I have.

There might be some graphical errors (but I think i fixed them anyways) but it should be able to open at least.
 
doady said:
Why? Is there an error message?

I just tried downloading it myself and it works fine for me. You need Adobe Reader version 7.0 or better, and version 7.0 is what I have.

There might be some graphical errors (but I think i fixed them anyways) but it should be able to open at least.
Click to expand...

thanks for the help. that map (vision) is amazing!
 
Doady,

An excellent map. One of the best I've seen. It's great to see people break free from the false dichotomy of "bus or subway". I feel like all the quibbles I have are minor. Though, one thing I don't get is why the Airport is served by a separate line, rather than being a continuation of either line 5 or 7?

I like your GTTA logo, too.

BTW, where did you get the base map from?

An idea I've had was to re-route the Barrie GO line though a tunnel to serve Dundas West, and still run the DRL through Dundas West. That could give us 2 subway lines, 4 GO lines, VIA service, and at least 4 surface routes at one place. Almost a second Union station. There's a good amount of redevelopable land around there too for office and condo developments. Rename it from "Dundas West" to "Davis Transportation Centre" or something similar.
 
Fantastic map.

I'm not a big fan of the #6 running down Bay though and making almost identical stops to the Yonge and University lines. I think it's too close to Yonge and University to necessitate a line. I would suggest that it perhaps was turned into an express line from Union to the Bloor line. That way you could relieve some pressure from the Yonge line and Y/B. Perhaps having a stop at Bloor and at Shaftesbury would be optimal.

Other than that, it looks great to me.

Also, perhaps someone can answer this for me. In Toronto (in real life and on this fantasy map) all of the subway lines run along streets and corridors yet many large cities, especially in Europe have lines that go all over (re: not following roads or corridors). Obviously our grid system is a major difference compared to Paris or London's maze of streets but in some cases we could probably benefit from subways crossing at various angles under the city. Why don't we do that in Toronto and what are the benefits/drawbacks/issues of building them in this way?
 
^ Toronto would be better off if we would break the stereotype that all lines must follow a straight path and allow subways to do their job, connecting people to where they actually want to go, not where future 'centres' hope to modify commuter destinations. I've suggested this here before that a downtown subway veer from place to place to take advantage of the wonderful yet somewhat transit isolated niche communities that exist in the core. Apart from expenses and general apathy from the public there's really nothing stopping such a line from existing, and in effect bringing much needed traffic and tourism to at-risk dentrificated neighborhoods.
 
Thanks to long-dead planners like the guys behind Don Mills and its numerous imitations, almost everything in the city worth serving with higher order transit lies on arterial roads, and often at intersections of arterial roads...transit lines that veer all over like a drunk driver have pretty much no place here. If you avoid roads and stuff like rail/hydro corridors, you eliminate the opportunity to cut & cover or run along the surface, to seamlessly connect with surface routes, etc. Straight lines are also cheaper and take less to travel.

Our lines don't always follow straight lines (not that we have many lines to use as examples). Danforth curves NE, hitting all kinds of bus routes. The Spadina extension will be similar as it shifts from University to Jane over its course.

The future Midtown GO line is a perfect case of how well diagonal transit lines serve bus routes that follow a grid.
 
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