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TTC: Jane (LRT) RapidTO

No, they would not have to expropriate buildings on both sides to widen Jane. They could also nix the bike lanes. I'm sure both of these options were deemed impossible, though.
 
Jane LRT Open House

I have been to the Jane LRT Open House held at the Syme Woolner Community School on Thursday, August 28, 2008. The following is a CC of the comments I sent to the TTC:

  1. I have a PDF copy of map 3 from the Toronto Official Plan. On the map, it shows that Jane Street between Bloor and Dundas has a right-of-way width of 20 m. Between Dundas and possibly the top of the south hill at Eglinton Flats has a width of 27 m, same between Weston and 401. Personally, I think you should take measurements again. However, taking a lane of traffic away from the south end of Jane Street for the LRT and leaving only one lane in each direction would be problematic. Trucks making turns to side streets, garbage trucks picking up recyclables, store deliveries, doctor and dentist pickups and drop-offs, and break-downs make having only one lane for traffic will cause enormous traffic jams. If the roadway is not wide enough for a LRT right-of-way and two lanes of traffic in both directions, go underground.

    Could you next time show the incline degrees of all the hills, valleys, bridges, and underpasses on Jane Street, on the next open house?

    My own recommendations for underground portions of the Jane LRT are as follows:

    going south, either north or south of Tretheway Drive, enter a portal; tunneling under the railway tracks and Weston Road, it would emerge in a portal on the north slope at Eglinton Flats; Eglinton Flats would be above ground; south of Eglinton Flats, it would enter a portal on the south slope; tunneling level through the hill, it would emerge in a portal just north of Dalrymle Drive; it would be above ground as it goes past Alliance Avenue and the Black Creek; south of the Black Creek, it would enter a portal north of Haney Avenue; it would continue underground completely from here down to Bloor Street and the Jane Street Subway station.​
  2. A single tunnel (bored or cut & cover) that is shared with both northbound and southbound LRV's be used.

  3. You have a station/stop at Outlook Avenue. A better location would be further south, between Alliance Avenue and Dalrymple Drive, as the Jane Park Plaza is located there and would better serve both transit riders and clients to the plaza.

  4. Have you looked into routing the LRT eastward at Dundas Street West, using either Dundas Street West or the railway right-of-way, down toward the Dundas West Subway station. This routing could also allow for a future Downtown Relief Line connection.

  5. The St. Clair West LRT extension was not included in the project. If it was, the St. Clair West LRT could have been extended south to the Jane Street Subway station, while the Jane LRT serves the West Toronto Junction along its way to Dundas West Subway station.

  6. Station/stop locations as follows: Bloor, Annette, St. Clair/Dundas, Woolner, Alliance, Eglinton, Weston, Tretheway, Lawrence, Maple Leaf/Queens Drive, Falstaff, Wilson, Heathrow, Exbury, Giltspur, Sheppard, Rita, Grandravine, Yorkwoods, (Yewtree), Finch, York Gate, Driftwood, Shoreham, Steeles, Murrary Ross, North West Gate (Subway)


    Only 7 or 8 will be underground stations, the rest above ground stations.
 
Gee, I hope Councillor Mammoliti doesn't try to reroute it to his giant flagpole, or Mammoliti Dux obelisk, or whatever he's planning at Weston and Finch
 
For those thinking of running Jane down the Weston Sub, here is what the ROW looks like at St Clair as of Aug 30-08

West

East

The best you can hope for is 6 tracks in this ROw at this point. 1/2 for CP, 1/2 for Blue22/VIA, 2 for Georgetown GO. Need a track for the Bolton line. Leaves nothing for TTC.
 
drum118 said:
For those thinking of running Jane down the Weston Sub, here is what the ROW looks like at St Clair as of Aug 30-08

West

East

The best you can hope for is 6 tracks in this ROw at this point. 1/2 for CP, 1/2 for Blue22/VIA, 2 for Georgetown GO. Need a track for the Bolton line. Leaves nothing for TTC.
Click to expand...

Or you could do this:

Make changes to the regional railway system to divert freight trains away from the core.

2 TTC tracks (DRL or Jane LRT branch)

4 tracks is more than enough for GO/VIA/Airport Rail, if they use half-decent signals.
 
urbanfan89 said:
Or you could do this:

Make changes to the regional railway system to divert freight trains away from the core.

2 TTC tracks (DRL or Jane LRT branch)

4 tracks is more than enough for GO/VIA/Airport Rail, if they use half-decent signals.
Click to expand...

No through freight goes through the core anymore. Only locals to serve the few remaining industries, but those are only one run per day or so.
 
I have two major problems with running Jane/DRL down the Weston sub. The first is a belief, previously stated, that expansion will require all of the existing ROW that can be laid to be done with heavy not light or metro rail, and that forcing the two modes to coexist will cause interesting problems in terms of getting the TTC lines onto and off the ROW as well as passengers in the locality entering/exiting the vehicles.

The other issue however is the question of too many eggs in one basket. We already have a massive single point of failure at Union, which is why the North Toronto line is needed for at least some expansion, but a derailment on the Weston ROW could not only close all GO/VIA/freight but also shut down the Jane LRT, or vice versa.
 
drum118 said:
For those thinking of running Jane down the Weston Sub, here is what the ROW looks like at St Clair as of Aug 30-08

West

East

The best you can hope for is 6 tracks in this ROw at this point. 1/2 for CP, 1/2 for Blue22/VIA, 2 for Georgetown GO. Need a track for the Bolton line. Leaves nothing for TTC.
Click to expand...

Why would there need to be 6 tracks for different heavy rail companies/concerns? In cities like Berlin and Tokyo, they are able to cram literally thousands of trains a day of all stripes (high speed rail, suburban rail, etc.) on 4 tracks. Even on our own continent, Metro North, Amtrak and NJT - basically all the traffic into Penn station - are able to use the four tracks of the old Penn Central tunnel perfectly fine.
 
Hipster Duck said:
Why would there need to be 6 tracks for different heavy rail companies/concerns? In cities like Berlin and Tokyo, they are able to cram literally thousands of trains a day of all stripes (high speed rail, suburban rail, etc.) on 4 tracks. Even on our own continent, Metro North, Amtrak and NJT - basically all the traffic into Penn station - are able to use the four tracks of the old Penn Central tunnel perfectly fine.
Click to expand...

I agree.

It's all about scheduling. If we're trying to cram six trains down the corridor at one time then of course we'll need 6 tracks. If we stagger the departures by 5 minutes then our capacity is greatly increased.
 
Dear Transfer City,

If the people along the northern half of Jane aren't the ones transferring to the Bloor line at Jane station, why should we bother building a line that diverts down the rail corridor so that they can get to the subway quicker when the Spadina line already does that for them?

Sincerely, Common Sense.
 
I find their comparison of BRT with LRT somewhat lopsided. They list one advantage for BRT with a slew of disadvantages, whereas for LRT they list a ton of advantages, with one disadvantage (cost). Strikes me as disingenuous somehow.
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
I find their comparison of BRT with LRT somewhat lopsided. They list one advantage for BRT with a slew of disadvantages, whereas for LRT they list a ton of advantages, with one disadvantage (cost). Strikes me as disingenuous somehow.
Click to expand...

For the Jane route, BRT as in "buses in dedicated lane" won't be much cheaper than LRT. It would still require street widening / property acquisition / perhaps tunneling.

BRT as in "express buses in mixed traffic" exists already (bus 35E).

However, I agree with you that the way they present the technology choice for Transit City lines (not just Jane) is overly simplified. They just estimate the future ridership, open the mode capacity table, and select the mode that fits. That approach ignores some important points:

1) Ridership actually depends on the selected mode, and even on the particular implementation (faster lines will tend to attract more transfer passengers).

2) Speed, availability of alternative routes, and the role (if any) of this route in the city-wide network.

3) For all rail-based modes, the possibilities of non-revenue connection (to other lines that use the same mode) will affect cost and reliability.

4) Cost estimates should be quantified, rather than just saying that Mode A will cost more than Mode B.
 
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