Transit Fantasy Maps

[Fresh Start]

There are a few things wrong with this argument:

1) New tracks would be built in the hydro corridor, through back lots which currently only have parking lots, and in undeveloped areas near the 404. Prime land perhaps, but not developable land.

2) Having worked there myself, Beaver Creek is at least 15-20 minutes away from the nearest GO station, by existing public transit. This is due to chronic surface congestion in rush hour. I would agree though that in the off peak and because no one is working, 5-7 minutes is realistic by 407 only.

3) You're assuming that people in Thornhill and Richmond Hill actually use the GO line, which they don't in large numbers. The small (by GO standards) parking lot at Langstaff doesn't even fill up - unheard of lack of demand for GO. Of the 8000 daily riders that use GO, maybe 5000 originate in York Region. Those who live in Thornhill could just as easily use a new station at Thornhill Square.

4) Due to the nature of travel in the Yonge corridor, the subway makes sense - as evidenced by the concentration of bus routes that serve Finch, and the much larger parking lot that fills up by 7:30 am. If GO made sense, more people would actually use it considering that it is currently faster than taking the bus to Finch and riding the subway. Might as well end a redundancy of service, and finally provide rapid transit to York's largest office park.

The way that things are today do not necessarily have to stay as such indefinitely. When I said under 10 minutes distance I was referring to travel via the VIVA BRT which only stops a handful of times between the 404 and RHC/Langstaff GO. Once upgrades are made to the corridor such as true transit signal priority and queue-jumping the average travel times can be reduced sharply. You're right that to Unionville would be slightly longer but that is not the major travel pattern anyway.

Ditto the Richmond Hill GO line as is can be improved. If the train only ran during rush hour, every 30 minutes and cost a lot to ride I'd find it unappealing to use as well. With electrification of the Bala Subdivision and removal of freight, transit trains would have complete right-of-way, be capability of accelerating and braking much more efficiency and therefore can operate faster, achieving top speeds not dreamed of along the Yonge Subway, even on its north-of-Eglinton stretch. The journey would be very comparable to the RHC extension in terms of travel times from Langstaff Gateway to Union Stn. While the subway would take one 45 minutes to get from start to finish, the existing line electrified could take less than thirty. With such time savings, even a minor backtrack on the subway thereafter (be it at Oriole/Leslie, Wynford Hts or Union) would be marginal and most customers would not consider it an inconvenience.

Other North American cities with metro lines into its suburbs (New York, Chicago) other commuter services quite similar to my suggestion here. The Purple Line of Chicago for instance runs from the satelite city of Evanston, IL into the downtown loop. However this line runs non-stop express bypassing all the stops through Chicago until it reaches the suburbs at Howard Stn and stops thereafter are locally spaced. Through that non-service section there's a parallel metro (Brown Line) that serves all the local stops prior to Evanston but it does not leave the metro area. At Howard, people on-board the Purple Line have the option to switch onto the Brown Line if they so desire one of the intermediate station stops or they can remain on the train bound for the CBD. Liken this to an interlined Sheppard car meeting commuters at Oriole/Leslie then serving all the stops between Sheppard and Union.

Under such conditions the justification for expanding Yonge northwards dissipates because the major commuter line is now to the east, closer to Beaver Creek and Markham where the majority of trips originate today. Yonge/Finch only sees a high-level of commuter traffic because surface rapid transit as yet is not very competitive against metro subways. This however can change. Were there a similar transit terminal connecting to N-S mass transit at Seneca College; demand levels to Yonge St would not be as high. And RHC can still emerge as a major destination, it shouldn't be contingent on whether a subway actually gets built there. Should the DRL be built however and extended to Eglinton East it could also intercept the Richmond Hill REX line at Wynford. As such, customers on-board the REX commuter railway would now have direct and relatively direct access to all major crosstown subway and LRT lines.

Node-wise, you'd be interconnecting far more priority areas with mass transit per not extending the subway and using that expenditure to build several projects instead. One such project, surface transit down Yonge on dedicated ROW, would not have the large kilometres apart spacing gaps of a subway as what's planned for Thornhill. You could have stops at Steeles, Doncaster, Clark, John, Royal Oak, Helen, Langstaff, RHC, High Tech, Bantry, 16th, Weldrick, Harding, Major Mac; thereby improving the quality of life and local accessibility for pedestrians as well fostering a genuine streetlife and streetscaping through all of urban Richmond Hill. Relocating the point whereby commuters switch from their cars or the bus onto the subway a few kilometres up the road is not a real solution. Getting commuters to convert completely onto other services by making them competitive against the Yonge Line for inbound/outbound travel is, and that like RHC extension will take money to do.

 

[Second_in_pie]

^^ Electrifying RH GO and getting the track straightened out, probably involving rebuilding the Leaside bridge and allowing Go trains to run in the CPR Mainline, would probably cost more than the subway extension. At that point, it really makes very little sense if the only good thing coming out of it is a 10 minute speed saving getting downtown, which nobody will use unless the trains are at 5 minute frequencies anyway! The current RH GO's routing creates a huge system redundancy. It really doesn't make sense for it to go back to Yonge at Langstaff. Switching it towards Beaver Creek and further north up the 404 would be a considerably better use of the current corridor, and could end up serving a lot of people that would otherwise go without rapid transit.

 

[Chuck]

Fresh Start, the point that you have always ignored is the fact that the majority of riders of the Yonge subway - especially outside of rush hour when the subway is still heavily used - are not going to the financial district, let alone Union Station. There is phenomenal ridership between York Region and the downtown universities, midtown office nodes at Bloor, St. Clair and Eglinton, North York Centre, and the Sheppard Subway. No upgrade of any sort to the GO line can carry these trips, which is why an extension of the Yonge line will always be a justifiable project.

As the York Region stations have demonstrated, the GO line is capable of relieving a certain percentage of trips off the Yonge line, perhaps 15%. I believe that this number has maxed out in York Region because GO is already carrying everyone that can use it. Now, if you can intercept a similar percentage of riders from TTC bus routes such as Steeles, Finch, Sheppard, York Mills, and Eglinton, that's where the the GO line starts to become handy.

All of your proposed GO upgrades should definitely proceed, but they won't lessen the urgency for a subway extension.

 

[Disparishun]

The journey would be very comparable to the RHC extension in terms of travel times from Langstaff Gateway to Union Stn. While the subway would take one 45 minutes to get from start to finish, the existing line electrified could take less than thirty. With such time savings, even a minor backtrack on the subway thereafter (be it at Oriole/Leslie, Wynford Hts or Union) would be marginal and most customers would not consider it an inconvenience.

The bulk of the traffic you're trying to catch is between Steeles and Langstaff Gateway. You are arguing that it would make sense for most of this traffic to backtrack up to Langstaff Gateway in order to catch a fast train down to Union.

As someone who is in the prime catchment area for your proposal, i.e. just west of Yonge and Clark, I doubt very seriously that this would be true for Union-bound traffic. You would need such staggering improvements RHGO frequencies and speeds that they are likely not possible to achieve. And, of course, for non-Union-bound traffic -- i.e. most of it -- even that would not work. So this proposal fails both for the minority of traffic which you do take into account, and for the majority of traffic, which you simply ignore.

Under such conditions the justification for expanding Yonge northwards dissipates because the major commuter line is now to the east, closer to Beaver Creek and Markham where the majority of trips originate today. Yonge/Finch only sees a high-level of commuter traffic because surface rapid transit as yet is not very competitive against metro subways. This however can change. Were there a similar transit terminal connecting to N-S mass transit at Seneca College; demand levels to Yonge St would not be as high.

This is logically inconsistent. The purpose of the Yonge extension is not to reduce traffic coming from the east.

Reducing traffic from the east needs to happen. Significant improvements in RH GO fare structure, frequencies, and trip times are essential for this reason. But this has nothing to do with the RH GO extension -- indeed, it only points to how silly are the proposals that the Yonge extension be shelved until a DRL is built. If that were really the concern, then low-hanging fruit like RH GO improvement would be commenced immediately. Instead, not only is RH GO improvement not planned anytime soon, it isn't even being seriously discussed.

And RHC can still emerge as a major destination, it shouldn't be contingent on whether a subway actually gets built there. Should the DRL be built however and extended to Eglinton East it could also intercept the Richmond Hill REX line at Wynford. As such, customers on-board the REX commuter railway would now have direct and relatively direct access to all major crosstown subway and LRT lines.

Yes, the DRL needs to inteconnect with the improved RH GO. If the improved RH GO isn't already up and running when they start digging for the DRL, though, then Metrolinx will have already screwed up big time. I think it is a safe prediction that that is exactly what will happen. The problem, it seems, is that noone with push in the City of Toronto politics has much interest in seeing an improved RH GO line.

One such project, surface transit down Yonge on dedicated ROW, would not have the large kilometres apart spacing gaps of a subway as what's planned for Thornhill. You could have stops at Steeles, Doncaster, Clark, John, Royal Oak, Helen, Langstaff, RHC, High Tech, Bantry, 16th, Weldrick, Harding, Major Mac; thereby improving the quality of life and local accessibility for pedestrians as well fostering a genuine streetlife and streetscaping through all of urban Richmond Hill. Relocating the point whereby commuters switch from their cars or the bus onto the subway a few kilometres up the road is not a real solution.

The reason this is wrong is that the "few kilometres up the road" is the location of major transit demand. Relocating the transfer point so that this demand is met is exactly the point.

P.S. Mods, do we need a separate thread on RH GO/REX/LRT? There have been a number of discussions like this which have popped up here and there; perhaps they need a home.

 

[Fresh Start]

Fresh Start, the point that you have always ignored is the fact that the majority of riders of the Yonge subway - especially outside of rush hour when the subway is still heavily used - are not going to the financial district, let alone Union Station. There is phenomenal ridership between York Region and the downtown universities, midtown office nodes at Bloor, St. Clair and Eglinton, North York Centre, and the Sheppard Subway. No upgrade of any sort to the GO line can carry these trips, which is why an extension of the Yonge line will always be a justifiable project.

It is only justifiable from a reduced transfers standpoint, not a costing one. Interlining the Sheppard subway onto the Yonge Line would cost less than extending YUS to Highway 7 and increase the utility of that underused ROW. Effectively the interline accomplishes two major things, riders south of Sheppard see a train arrive every 1'17" instead of every 2'35". The extra trips between Sheppard and Union result in spare capacity on-board inbound trains for intra-416 commuters. The second benefit relates to your reply in that riders aboard the inbound Richmond Hill REX commuter train that would transfer off at Oriole/Leslie would have one-seat direct access to Sheppard-Bayview, Sheppard-Yonge, Midtown, Bloor and the downtown along Yonge St. Travelers remaining on the commuter line would also have access to new stations at York Mills/Leslie, Don Mills Centre, Wynford Hts and the West Don Lands prior to Union/CBD; further integrating the region's fragmented trip-generators (large residential and employment areas) with mass transit. It could happen in the absence of extending the Yonge Line, but expanding the subway first will give credence to all naysayers that such a line revamp is not needed. So to me, the subway is kind of a cop-out, an excuse not to fix the existing infrastructure and further integrate the system, even if the projected growth at Hwy 7/Yonge could fill inbound subway trips. And like I said, those whom truly need to go to Yonge St would still have multiple rapid transit modes with which to get them there, up to and including a potential interlined metro only requiring the one transfer.

As the York Region stations have demonstrated, the GO line is capable of relieving a certain percentage of trips off the Yonge line, perhaps 15%. I believe that this number has maxed out in York Region because GO is already carrying everyone that can use it. Now, if you can intercept a similar percentage of riders from TTC bus routes such as Steeles, Finch, Sheppard, York Mills, and Eglinton, that's where the the GO line starts to become handy.

All of your proposed GO upgrades should definitely proceed, but they won't lessen the urgency for a subway extension.

Yes but that is rush hour only, 15-30 minute trip frequency. Electrifying the Bala Sub would mean reduced headways. As many as twenty trips per hour all-day could occur. So while I can understand why you may feel this extension is urgent, to me several projects are urgent. The whole system needs to be reformed. Before talk of a Richmond Hill extension to the Yonge Line though, an extension just to Steeles even; the DRL needs to be built to a significant length, Stoufville GO needs bi-directionality, Sheppard needs to at least breach the Scarborough border, TYSSE and the 407 Transitway need to be up and functional and something needs to be done along Don Mills Rd and/or the 404. There's demand for the Yonge corridor, that will never change, but how one gets there and at what precise point along Yonge they arrive at or are destined for is not yet set in stone. Commuters will adapt to whichever travel pattern suits their needs best, if only the transit agencies would afford the public with multiple transit options vs. dumping everyone off at a singular suburban transit hub, be it at Finch or RHC, then having to ride the subway all the way inwards.

 

[Fresh Start]

The bulk of the traffic you're trying to catch is between Steeles and Langstaff Gateway. You are arguing that it would make sense for most of this traffic to backtrack up to Langstaff Gateway in order to catch a fast train down to Union.

As someone who is in the prime catchment area for your proposal, i.e. just west of Yonge and Clark, I doubt very seriously that this would be true for Union-bound traffic. You would need such staggering improvements RHGO frequencies and speeds that they are likely not possible to achieve. And, of course, for non-Union-bound traffic -- i.e. most of it -- even that would not work. So this proposal fails both for the minority of traffic which you do take into account, and for the majority of traffic, which you simply ignore.

This is logically inconsistent. The purpose of the Yonge extension is not to reduce traffic coming from the east.

Well the main traffic is coming from the northeast (Beaver Creek, Markham) not Richmond Hill, and certainly not from Thornhill as of yet. I'd expect someone at Yonge and Clark to either take the 5 bus or BRT or possiblly LRT service directly into the subway. That's a relatively short distance. If an exclusive right-of-way were made down the median of Yonge Street capable of speeds similar to a subway, would it matter to you what mode it was? Most people wouldn't. I'd naturally expect the residents of Thornhill to feed into the Yonge subway, and would welcome a fast and reliable at-grade means for them to access it. It's the residents of Richmond Hill and those along the Highway 7 East corridor that I would anticipate would have less of a need for the Yonge Line after rapid transit along the Bala Sub and Don Mills/404 becomes a reality. Their numbers are voluminous and are what contributes to the overcrowding on the subway by the time it leaves North York. Take the bulk of them out of the equation and more riders within Toronto can have a seated ride on the Yonge subway.

But this has nothing to do with the RH GO extension -- indeed, it only points to how silly are the proposals that the Yonge extension be shelved until a DRL is built. If that were really the concern, then low-hanging fruit like RH GO improvement would be commenced immediately. Instead, not only is RH GO improvement not planned anytime soon, it isn't even being seriously discussed.

Yeah, like I said to Chuck, there needs to be serious groundwork put into fixing the Bala Sub and its commuter rail services, fixtures I fear will never occur if the subway line is sent to the exact same location as Langstaff GO and RHC bus terminal. It will make the Bala Sub a white elephant, ironic since the GO line predates either RHC bus terminal or the planned redevelopment of the 407 lands. In essence without the GO station in place to pioneer transit oriented development, none of this would have been happening.

The reason this is wrong is that the "few kilometres up the road" is the location of major transit demand. Relocating the transfer point so that this demand is met is exactly the point.

But there are many urban centres in the GTA with major transit demand, moreso than RHC, that are not on any kind of radar to be recipients of a subway. Not even the downtown core east-to-west can say that it has this luxury. The chief concerns here are cost and capacity. A lesser concern is directness of travel. If Factor A and Factor B can be alleviated by compromising on Factor C, it is not an entirely bad thing. Trip duration, depending on one's end-destination (which is hard to determine with statistics to an exact science, btw) can be as fast as a subway ride from RHC to NYCC, Midtown or Downtown.

You will probably recieve your $6 billion dollar gift from the Feds in due time though ~ in spite of sound alternate solutions that would cost a bundle less to the taxpayer and serve a broader market of transit users ~ so no need to worry. I'll concede for now.

 

[Second_in_pie]

The argument for RH GO over the Yonge extension is a bit ridiculous. It's basically, "Let people heading downtown get a 10 minute faster ride than with subway, but keep the 30 mins bus ride for everyone going north of Bloor."

Like it or not, RH GO creates a large redundancy in the network by backtracking to Yonge. That rerouting to Beaver Creek would be incredibly useful and would provide service to an entirely new sector of riders. It could easily still intercept riders on routes like Finch East Sheppard, Highway 7, and Eglinton, but the rerouting at the top means we're not spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a slightly cushier ride than the subway gives.

 

[Teddy]

Hey all I'm new here. Drawn in by the various maps!

Wanted to share my transit plan. I made it for a friend and I'm not finished making it all pretty, but I will explain it in short:

http://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?hl=en...d=101714683938336514556.000478291a6f588219756

A new yonge-bay express subway line running under streets like Bay, Duplex, and Doris. What kind of technology to use here (Subway, LRT, even ICTS if you really want) is open, as is the exact route, but the basic idea is there.

All of transit city with some additions

A Finch East LRT
A Lawrence West / Weston LRT

A unique Downtown Relief line. Rather than a single LRT or single subway line, this downtown relief line would be two LRT lines. One would start at Danforth while the other goes north and becomes the Don Mills LRT. One line would be express straight to Union while the other would have 'local' stops and run under Queen.

That, in short, is the entire plan!

I've been working on this, evolving it for the past number of years. If you see anything you like, or, anything that might not work in real world settings, please let me know. Thanks.

 

[dunkalunk]

Who is Rub?

 

[Tdot_one]

Hey all I'm new here. Drawn in by the various maps!

Wanted to share my transit plan. I made it for a friend and I'm not finished making it all pretty, but I will explain it in short:

http://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?hl=en...d=101714683938336514556.000478291a6f588219756

A new yonge-bay express subway line running under streets like Bay, Duplex, and Doris. What kind of technology to use here (Subway, LRT, even ICTS if you really want) is open, as is the exact route, but the basic idea is there.

All of transit city with some additions

A Finch East LRT
A Lawrence West / Weston LRT

A unique Downtown Relief line. Rather than a single LRT or single subway line, this downtown relief line would be two LRT lines. One would start at Danforth while the other goes north and becomes the Don Mills LRT. One line would be express straight to Union while the other would have 'local' stops and run under Queen.

That, in short, is the entire plan!

I've been working on this, evolving it for the past number of years. If you see anything you like, or, anything that might not work in real world settings, please let me know. Thanks.

That'll fail. The LRT has a short catchment radius and is designed for a much lower ridership. The DRL, on the other hand (even agreed upon by Steve Munro) is a subway-level corridor. It'll be well utilized and its stations will be connected TTC's comprehensive bus feeder network as well.

This isn't a street-level network and Transit City isn't aiming to be that either.

 

[doady]

yllianos' map reminds me of Chicago, sort of.

 

[yllianos]

yllianos' map reminds me of Chicago, sort of.

LOL. Actually that's what I was going for when I made the map. From a sideways perspective, our system looks suspiciously like Chicago's. With the Scarborough RT looking like the Skokie Swift. Too bad ours doesn't go very far.

 

[GTS]

Teddy, I looked at your map and I thought you could have extended the Blood/Danforth line west to the Sherway Gardens area. That would bring rapid transit to the Mississauga border, I thought we could do this since we are extended the YUS line into York Region past York U and a possible extension of the Yonge Line. I think Sherway has a lot of potential as a minor transit hub because of its proximity to Mississauga Transit and major highways. The Gardiner already has the ramps constructed that lead directly to Sherway Gardens so different regional buses such as GO and Coach Canada could easily use this transit hub so they have a connection to the TTC and maybe some MT buses as well.

 

[yllianos]

Does anyone wanna say headache?

I will EVENTUALLY figure out a clean way to do transfers. But with respective transit companies only.

 

[GTS]

I like the new TTC subway map but I prefer Montreal's interactive metro map more. I think subway maps with the black backgroud look better. Their is more info. on the STM interactive map as well, more pictures and what is in the area near each station, both maps have the important connecting bus routes info. At least the TTC is improving on what they used to have, hopefully they keep on improving