TTC: Bloor Danforth Line 2 West Extension(s)

[crs1026]

It all depends on how badly the TTC needs an MSF, and what the plan for connectivity to Hurontario looks like, and what the plan is for Park Lawn.

I could live with a standard-gauge Queensway line serviced from the Hurontario MSF (thus relieving pressure on the TTC's maintenance infrastructure) - assuming eastward LRT on Lakeshore from Port Credit. Dual ended trams and crossovers rather than a loop at Humber/Park Lawn.

Lakeshore Blvd has too much newly-installed track to rush to convert it to standard gauge.... but in 20 years ? Maybe 501 and Lakeshore West LRT ends at Humber/Park Lawn.

For that matter, plenty of space in south Etobicoke for a new standard gauge MSF to service Kipling, Queensway LRT.... and maybe Dundas into Mississauga.

Or.... move Roncy to a new super-MSF in south Etobicoke by leveraging the real estate revenue from the Roncy property. In that case, I would stick with TTC gauge and equipment.

- Paul

 

[JasonParis]

Personally I’d keep things as simple as possible - Queensway LRT built compatible with the streetcars rather Han suburban LRT, and a one stop BD extension to Queensway via Obico lands to get the connection.

Does that get it to Sherway though?

 

[Bureaucromancer]

Does that get it to Sherway though?

It gets a short streetcar connection from Queensway station to Sherway, or a long one seat surface ride downtown.

 

[Rainforest]

Lakeshore Blvd has too much newly-installed track to rush to convert it to standard gauge.... but in 20 years ? Maybe 501 and Lakeshore West LRT ends at Humber/Park Lawn.

Thought of that, too. But in order to make that split an improvement rather than just a new transfer, should there be a higher-order transit station at Humber?

The OL's western terminus at the Exhibition Stn will be located inside the LSW rail corridor. Looks like an opportunity to extend the OL rails in the same corridor further west, and reach the Humber loop as the new terminus. Another OL station can be placed south of High Park, providing a better access there from downtown and the east end.

For that matter, plenty of space in south Etobicoke for a new standard gauge MSF to service Kipling, Queensway LRT.... and maybe Dundas into Mississauga.

Sounds good.

Or.... move Roncy to a new super-MSF in south Etobicoke by leveraging the real estate revenue from the Roncy property. In that case, I would stick with TTC gauge and equipment.

Not sure about that. Yes, a one-time pile of cash from the sale of the Roncy property. But > 80% of the TTC gauge routes length is east of Roncy, mostly in the downtown area. If the trams have to head there from south Etobicoke every morning, and back every evening, that's a lot of deadhead travel. Plus, the risk that the barn will be cut from the main service area if anything happens to the Lakeshore tracks.

 

[crs1026]

Thought of that, too. But in order to make that split an improvement rather than just a new transfer, should there be a higher-order transit station at Humber?

The OL's western terminus at the Exhibition Stn will be located inside the LSW rail corridor. Looks like an opportunity to extend the OL rails in the same corridor further west, and reach the Humber loop as the new terminus. Another OL station can be placed south of High Park, providing a better access there from downtown and the east end.

Having the OL run exactly parallel to GO seems like a duplication, and there isn’t all that much width available. I would let the upgraded GO be the higher order connection, with the Park Lawn GO station serving as a hub. That gives two transfer points to the OL, one at Exhibition and a second at East Harbour. And good access to Union as well.

If the Queensway 501 row were managed as a proper LRT, and a Waterfront LRT built all the way to Humber/Park Lawn, there would be plenty of one seat connectivity to areas west of University, the waterfront, and downtown.

A pet theory of mine - Putting the 501 underground (cut and cover, please) from Sunnyside east to Dufferin would make a big improvement in 501 connectivity, and would ease traffic congestion through Queen-Roncy, which will always be an issue. Except, we just rebuilt the intersection…… well, maybe in 20 years.

- Paul

 

[Bureaucromancer]

Having the OL run exactly parallel to GO seems like a duplication, and there isn’t all that much width available. I would let the upgraded GO be the higher order connection, with the Park Lawn GO station serving as a hub. That gives two transfer points to the OL, one at Exhibition and a second at East Harbour. And good access to Union as well.

If the Queensway 501 row were managed as a proper LRT, and a Waterfront LRT built all the way to Humber/Park Lawn, there would be plenty of one seat connectivity to areas west of University, the waterfront, and downtown.

A pet theory of mine - Putting the 501 underground (cut and cover, please) from Sunnyside east to Dufferin would make a big improvement in 501 connectivity, and would ease traffic congestion through Queen-Roncy, which will always be an issue. Except, we just rebuilt the intersection…… well, maybe in 20 years.

There was a recent discussion in, I think, the dream maps thread, about using a streeetcar tunnel along the lines of the 1946 plan (shifted to King presumably) as a version of a second DRL/next downtown subway. Frankly I’m increasingly fond of the idea between the connectivity it creates, the impact another independent rapid transit line would have on the streetcar network and lack of need for a GO tunnel if something like crosstown happens.

 

[Rainforest]

Having the OL run exactly parallel to GO seems like a duplication, and there isn’t all that much width available. I would let the upgraded GO be the higher order connection, with the Park Lawn GO station serving as a hub. That gives two transfer points to the OL, one at Exhibition and a second at East Harbour. And good access to Union as well.

On one hand, duplication. But on the other hand, extending the OL in the rail corridor would remove the need to add GO stations along the same stretch, and GO trains would run faster.

The idea came from the fact that OL already occupies the corridor space east of the Exhibition. It doesn't look like the corridor is wider east of the Exhibition than between the Exhibition and Park Lawn. Thus, extending the OL tracks further west would make use of the space, while using the same space for additional GO tracks would hit the bottleneck east of the Exhibition.

If the Queensway 501 row were managed as a proper LRT, and a Waterfront LRT built all the way to Humber/Park Lawn, there would be plenty of one seat connectivity to areas west of University, the waterfront, and downtown.

To my understanding, the Bremner LRT idea is dead. The latest Waterfront West LRT plan connects to the OL / GO Exhibition station, and that's not a one-seat to downtown. Using the Queens Quay route would be way too slow. It takes about 25 min to travel from the Exhibition to Union on the Queens Quay streetcar; riders from the west will rather transfer to OL and forfeit the one-seat ride.

A pet theory of mine - Putting the 501 underground (cut and cover, please) from Sunnyside east to Dufferin would make a big improvement in 501 connectivity, and would ease traffic congestion through Queen-Roncy, which will always be an issue. Except, we just rebuilt the intersection…… well, maybe in 20 years.

- Paul

That will work, too. But the streetcar tunnel will probably cost more than the surface OL extension in the LSW corridor.

 

[turbanplanner]

It gets a short streetcar connection from Queensway station to Sherway, or a long one seat surface ride downtown.

Nobody wants to switch vehicles especially for 1 or 2 stops total distance.

 

[drum118]

On one hand, duplication. But on the other hand, extending the OL in the rail corridor would remove the need to add GO stations along the same stretch, and GO trains would run faster.

The idea came from the fact that OL already occupies the corridor space east of the Exhibition. It doesn't look like the corridor is wider east of the Exhibition than between the Exhibition and Park Lawn. Thus, extending the OL tracks further west would make use of the space, while using the same space for additional GO tracks would hit the bottleneck east of the Exhibition.



To my understanding, the Bremner LRT idea is dead. The latest Waterfront West LRT plan connects to the OL / GO Exhibition station, and that's not a one-seat to downtown. Using the Queens Quay route would be way too slow. It takes about 25 min to travel from the Exhibition to Union on the Queens Quay streetcar; riders from the west will rather transfer to OL and forfeit the one-seat ride.



That will work, too. But the streetcar tunnel will probably cost more than the surface OL extension in the LSW corridor.

The corridor west of Bathurst St will handle 5 track to Long Branch as well up to east of Hurontario St. 4 tracks west of that point to Aldershot.

TTC keeps hopping for the Bremner line, but DOA on many fronts.

Again, you need to think about people in between your 2 points as not everyone wants to go downtown. It could be in between or else where. The world doesn't revolved around the downtown for lots of people, but we continue to funnel them there when we should having lines going elsewhere.

 

[steviej1]

The corridor west of Bathurst St will handle 5 track to Long Branch as well up to east of Hurontario St. 4 tracks west of that point to Aldershot.

TTC keeps hopping for the Bremner line, but DOA on many fronts.

Again, you need to think about people in between your 2 points as not everyone wants to go downtown. It could be in between or else where. The world doesn't revolved around the downtown for lots of people, but we continue to funnel them there when we should having lines going elsewhere.

No one is not thinking of the people who don't wanna go downtown. There are buses that can handle those trips. Imagine having this thought process when building the Yonge Subway line and saying 'people wanna go places in between. Let's not build a subway and an LRT instead' which would make commuting from Finch to Eglinton or anywhere south of Sheppard a nightmare given the time it would take.

 

[rbt]

No one is not thinking of the people who don't wanna go downtown. There are buses that can handle those trips. Imagine having this thought process when building the Yonge Subway line and saying 'people wanna go places in between. Let's not build a subway and an LRT instead' which would make commuting from Finch to Eglinton or anywhere south of Sheppard a nightmare given the time it would take.

Yonge was an LRT for ~90 years. It was popular enough that Victoria, Church, and Bay were also LRTs, and all those lines were operating at capacity. The subway replaced them with a higher capacity option, largely paid for with fares from those LRT lines, and operated with a profit at day 1 due to 90+ years of ridership growth within the corridor.

Low cost Incremental improvements is why Yonge has a subway. If Toronto tried building a subway immediately after the Metropolitan line opened (1863) the entire endeavour would likely have gone bankrupt and there's a good chance Toronto would look more like Rochester which did open a subway in 1927. Rochester and Toronto were peers at that time (similar population size and GDP).

 

[drum118]

No one is not thinking of the people who don't wanna go downtown. There are buses that can handle those trips. Imagine having this thought process when building the Yonge Subway line and saying 'people wanna go places in between. Let's not build a subway and an LRT instead' which would make commuting from Finch to Eglinton or anywhere south of Sheppard a nightmare given the time it would take.

Once subway lines were built, Toronto become a bus to subway with nothing in between them. We have bus routes that should be an BRT/LRT line, yet you are saying buses are only good for those lines if a subway can't be built to replace them.

Think what Sheppard look like today if an LRT was built in place of the white elephant that only moves 65,000 riders with a force change. For the cost of that subway, Sheppard could had an LRT running from end to end or very close on it. That is the east and west sections.

As noted, streetcar built the ridership on Yonge to justify the building of the subway after 35 years when it was proposed and approved by the residents of Toronto back in 1910. The Queen line was to been tunnel for the centre section for streetcar both in 1910 and 1945 to the point the Queen station was built in 1945 with the rest not being built after the Fed back out building the Queen line.

 

[steviej1]

Once subway lines were built, Toronto become a bus to subway with nothing in between them. We have bus routes that should be an BRT/LRT line, yet you are saying buses are only good for those lines if a subway can't be built to replace them.

Think what Sheppard look like today if an LRT was built in place of the white elephant that only moves 65,000 riders with a force change. For the cost of that subway, Sheppard could had an LRT running from end to end or very close on it. That is the east and west sections.

As noted, streetcar built the ridership on Yonge to justify the building of the subway after 35 years when it was proposed and approved by the residents of Toronto back in 1910. The Queen line was to been tunnel for the centre section for streetcar both in 1910 and 1945 to the point the Queen station was built in 1945 with the rest not being built after the Fed back out building the Queen line.

I am specifically referring to an LRT to Sherway, which doesn't make any sense considering it would be a line that is only 3.5 km. I don't think it makes any sense to force an interchange and do all that construction for a subway that can be constructed without tunneling it for such a short distance. In that area, a relatively cheap subway extension makes sense. An LRT makes no sense at all for such a tiny distance, especially considering a subway extension would be relatively cheap and also considering that buses can serve that particular area well enough.

As for LRTs in general, I'd be fine with that, but the problem is Toronto doesn't build them the way they should. We have stop distances literally less than 150 metres apart from Warden to Hakimi Lebovic. There is very limited to no signal priority on Eglinton. We've made them very similar to Spadina and St. Clair. The Finch LRT has close stop spacing as well and I doubt they will put signal priority on it. We could have achieved something similar by just doing a BRT on Finch. I'm actually all for BRTs. I want to dramatically expand RapidTO as well. It's the way we do LRTs is what really gets under my skin. So my philosophy is this, if we *know* that Toronto doesn't build LRTs with appropriate stop distances and signal priority, then why bother building them to begin with. Just stick to the lower cost BRTs and expand RapidTO, and also extend current subway lines where appropriate.

 

[afransen]

Once subway lines were built, Toronto become a bus to subway with nothing in between them. We have bus routes that should be an BRT/LRT line, yet you are saying buses are only good for those lines if a subway can't be built to replace them.

Think what Sheppard look like today if an LRT was built in place of the white elephant that only moves 65,000 riders with a force change. For the cost of that subway, Sheppard could had an LRT running from end to end or very close on it. That is the east and west sections.

As noted, streetcar built the ridership on Yonge to justify the building of the subway after 35 years when it was proposed and approved by the residents of Toronto back in 1910. The Queen line was to been tunnel for the centre section for streetcar both in 1910 and 1945 to the point the Queen station was built in 1945 with the rest not being built after the Fed back out building the Queen line.

And in a way, if Sheppard had been built end-to-end as LRT and did eventually become overloaded, we could then look at supplementing (not replacing) the LRT service with a limited stop/express subway with stops every 1.5-3km. You retain LRT for more local service and perhaps even look at adding infill LRT stations. It would be more cost effective than building a subway with frequent stops, and provide faster travel speed along the corridor.

 

[afransen]

I am specifically referring to an LRT to Sherway, which doesn't make any sense considering it would be a line that is only 3.5 km. I don't think it makes any sense to force an interchange and do all that construction for a subway that can be constructed without tunneling it for such a short distance. In that area, a relatively cheap subway extension makes sense. An LRT makes no sense at all for such a tiny distance, especially considering a subway extension would be relatively cheap and also considering that buses can serve that particular area well enough.

As for LRTs in general, I'd be fine with that, but the problem is Toronto doesn't build them the way they should. We have stop distances literally less than 150 metres apart from Warden to Hakimi Lebovic. There is very limited to no signal priority on Eglinton. We've made them very similar to Spadina and St. Clair. The Finch LRT has close stop spacing as well and I doubt they will put signal priority on it. We could have achieved something similar by just doing a BRT on Finch. I'm actually all for BRTs. I want to dramatically expand RapidTO as well. It's the way we do LRTs is what really gets under my skin. So my philosophy is this, if we *know* that Toronto doesn't build LRTs with appropriate stop distances and signal priority, then why bother building them to begin with. Just stick to the lower cost BRTs and expand RapidTO, and also extend current subway lines where appropriate.

I'm skeptical any extension to Line 2 makes sense, especially if/when Milton GO is upgraded to frequent service (which is a much better use of funds). For the cost of Line 2 to Sherway you could build an LRT from Kipling to Hurontario via Sherway and Queensway, with service running between Kipling GO and Port Credit GO, and maybe between Kipling GO and Square One on the HuLRT. Or less ambitiously, a connection down to Long Branch GO.