neubilder
Banned
"Gee, I love Rob Ford, and these are the kinds of things I think of to say."
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TTC: Queens Quay East BRT (Unofficial proposal)
- Thread starter allabootmatt
- Start date
"Gee, I love Rob Ford, and these are the kinds of things I think of to say."
drum118
Superstar
It is possible that info will be up on Toronto Waterfront web site next week about 4 options for temporarily transit on the eastern section until there is money to built the Streetcar ROW.
At the rate things are going, we are looking at at least 15 years plus for streetcars, if at all.
The cost for the ROW has jump $100m with the project over $400m now thanks to Toronto Water. Toronto Water has change their policy from 1m to 3m for full cost to being pickup by transit as Toronto water see a money tree to replace their lines 100% even if there is no life in them. Someone needs to do some head knocking on this life cycle cost being pickup by transit when they have nothing to due with it in the first place.
Waterfront has $90m to invest in transit as throw away money, but the wrong approach to solve the issue in the first place.
The 4 options being proposed are DOA (Dead on Arrival) as most of them were rule out in the master EA plan as well during the Cherry St and Central Waterfront EA and design stages.
Option 1:
Streetcars will only run east-west only with the current tunnel being converted to (a) walkway tunnel. (b) walkway and moving sidewalk. (c) moving sidewalk. (d) people mover.
Cost for this option ranges between $128m to $246m.
Major of people living on QQ will not support this option. At the same time, you just remove a connect for the EX, but it can be move to Spadina as a longer trip with extra transfer taking place.
Option 2:
(a) Beef up #6 but looping it south of Queen St at a cost of $9m. There is not enough ridership going north of Queen to justify increase of service for #6 there.
Again, it DOA as you have traffic issues trying not only loopping the buses, but dealing with Bay St since the HOV lanes are not enforce.
(b) run the route by Bay St in one direction and use Yonge for the other direction.
There is an option to run service to Parliament and Queen from Union Station that needs to be looked at also.
Option 3:
Some type of streetcar looping service on the surface and need to see what being proposed before commenting on it.
Option 4:
(a) a light BRT using Bay St, but the same issues as option 2.
(b) converting Bay St into ROW with buses using the southbound lane with single lane traffic in both direction in the northbound lanes. Problem for this option is where/how do you put in the bus stops for the northbound buses. Queens Quay would see the same thing in the eastbound lanes for the ROW. Some type of cheap barrier would be use for the ROW.
(c) Running single lane on Bay & Yonge St as Option 2b with the ROW on QQ.
The cost for these options is $36m
An idea has been put forth that you built the Streetcar ROW on QQ east of Yonge now, but wider to accept buses by 1m.
I still would use my original plan and that is closing Bay St off to traffic and turn it into a transit pedestrian mall south of Queen St to QQ. Only 1 lane for northbound traffic would be open between QQ and Lake Shore to get onto the eastbound Gardiner or until it comes down. That lane would be use by GO up to Union Station as well other bus lines when the new bus terminal gets built.
TTC opposed the surface option due to movement at QQ and Bay as well the Lake Shore blockage. For Lake Shore, you put in crossing gates to stop traffic blocking Bay St. The new design for Bay & QQ would deal with the issue as well priority traffic lights.
This option has a flaw now based on the fact that the new fleet is single end cars where the the original option was base on duel end. How do you loop these cars now without getting caught up in traffic on the loop streets has to be look at now. To deal with this flaw there are 2 options. 1) take the line up to Bloor St and by doing so, you are taking pressure off the Yonge line, even though the travel time will be longer. 2) purchase duel end cars and that will remove the needs for loops at both ends.
Since Toronto Waterfront plans to start building the south side this year in phases, putting the ROW for Streetcar needs to happen now. I can live with the idea of using the ROW for BRT now until there is funding to built the missing link for underground. I have never support TTC plan for the rebuilt loop since its only good for today needs, but not the needs for 20-50 years down the road. That why I am pushing Bay St surface idea.
The past Chief City planners see the need to close Bay St off as pedestrians out number cars 5:1 now and only going to increase in the coming years as GO adds more trains service to Union Station. One can't walk north on Bay St at 4-5:30 pm today as there is a wall of pedestrians heading south to catch service from Union Station.
The one thing needs to be added to these options is what does it cost riders as a $$ figure. That has never been taken into consideration in the past and needs to be done now. Using that rider cost will show what option/choice is the right one in the long run.
What are other people thoughts??
At the rate things are going, we are looking at at least 15 years plus for streetcars, if at all.
The cost for the ROW has jump $100m with the project over $400m now thanks to Toronto Water. Toronto Water has change their policy from 1m to 3m for full cost to being pickup by transit as Toronto water see a money tree to replace their lines 100% even if there is no life in them. Someone needs to do some head knocking on this life cycle cost being pickup by transit when they have nothing to due with it in the first place.
Waterfront has $90m to invest in transit as throw away money, but the wrong approach to solve the issue in the first place.
The 4 options being proposed are DOA (Dead on Arrival) as most of them were rule out in the master EA plan as well during the Cherry St and Central Waterfront EA and design stages.
Option 1:
Streetcars will only run east-west only with the current tunnel being converted to (a) walkway tunnel. (b) walkway and moving sidewalk. (c) moving sidewalk. (d) people mover.
Cost for this option ranges between $128m to $246m.
Major of people living on QQ will not support this option. At the same time, you just remove a connect for the EX, but it can be move to Spadina as a longer trip with extra transfer taking place.
Option 2:
(a) Beef up #6 but looping it south of Queen St at a cost of $9m. There is not enough ridership going north of Queen to justify increase of service for #6 there.
Again, it DOA as you have traffic issues trying not only loopping the buses, but dealing with Bay St since the HOV lanes are not enforce.
(b) run the route by Bay St in one direction and use Yonge for the other direction.
There is an option to run service to Parliament and Queen from Union Station that needs to be looked at also.
Option 3:
Some type of streetcar looping service on the surface and need to see what being proposed before commenting on it.
Option 4:
(a) a light BRT using Bay St, but the same issues as option 2.
(b) converting Bay St into ROW with buses using the southbound lane with single lane traffic in both direction in the northbound lanes. Problem for this option is where/how do you put in the bus stops for the northbound buses. Queens Quay would see the same thing in the eastbound lanes for the ROW. Some type of cheap barrier would be use for the ROW.
(c) Running single lane on Bay & Yonge St as Option 2b with the ROW on QQ.
The cost for these options is $36m
An idea has been put forth that you built the Streetcar ROW on QQ east of Yonge now, but wider to accept buses by 1m.
I still would use my original plan and that is closing Bay St off to traffic and turn it into a transit pedestrian mall south of Queen St to QQ. Only 1 lane for northbound traffic would be open between QQ and Lake Shore to get onto the eastbound Gardiner or until it comes down. That lane would be use by GO up to Union Station as well other bus lines when the new bus terminal gets built.
TTC opposed the surface option due to movement at QQ and Bay as well the Lake Shore blockage. For Lake Shore, you put in crossing gates to stop traffic blocking Bay St. The new design for Bay & QQ would deal with the issue as well priority traffic lights.
This option has a flaw now based on the fact that the new fleet is single end cars where the the original option was base on duel end. How do you loop these cars now without getting caught up in traffic on the loop streets has to be look at now. To deal with this flaw there are 2 options. 1) take the line up to Bloor St and by doing so, you are taking pressure off the Yonge line, even though the travel time will be longer. 2) purchase duel end cars and that will remove the needs for loops at both ends.
Since Toronto Waterfront plans to start building the south side this year in phases, putting the ROW for Streetcar needs to happen now. I can live with the idea of using the ROW for BRT now until there is funding to built the missing link for underground. I have never support TTC plan for the rebuilt loop since its only good for today needs, but not the needs for 20-50 years down the road. That why I am pushing Bay St surface idea.
The past Chief City planners see the need to close Bay St off as pedestrians out number cars 5:1 now and only going to increase in the coming years as GO adds more trains service to Union Station. One can't walk north on Bay St at 4-5:30 pm today as there is a wall of pedestrians heading south to catch service from Union Station.
The one thing needs to be added to these options is what does it cost riders as a $$ figure. That has never been taken into consideration in the past and needs to be done now. Using that rider cost will show what option/choice is the right one in the long run.
What are other people thoughts??
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innsertnamehere
Superstar
I wonder if they could have the streetcars loop through the GO bus terminal?
also, could funding come from the new metrolinx tax? (25% is for local transit investment)
maybe they could order a couple of extra Flexity Freedom (transit city) vehicles built to TTC gauge as well?
also, could funding come from the new metrolinx tax? (25% is for local transit investment)
maybe they could order a couple of extra Flexity Freedom (transit city) vehicles built to TTC gauge as well?
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Neil
Active Member
I'm on board with the Bay Street surface option. There are too many pedestrians to have cars there. A few thoughts:
1) The current Bay St. streetcar tunnel. I am an proponent of bringing the Gardiner down to grade and feel this tunnel will be required to go under it. At the south portal, it must be possible to have it begin even with the N. side Queens Quay sidewalk. Its 90 meters to the S. side Harbour St. sidewalk. That's 7m of drop at an 8% grade. At the north end, I would have the tunnel emerge roughly in front of the ACC. Simplifying this tunnel would certainly remove cost from the QQ East streetcar project and create a QQ through route option. Obviously the Union loop would be abandoned.
2. As a loop option, I would have a loop that goes counter-clockwise around old city hall. With no vehicle traffic on Bay south of Queen, that intersection would be much simpler. Between Albert and Queen, Bay St could be shifted a bit to west to leave space for the south bound Streetcar ROW on the old city hall side.
3. All the way to Bloor. Yes, in time. More pedestrian/transit mall required I would think.
1) The current Bay St. streetcar tunnel. I am an proponent of bringing the Gardiner down to grade and feel this tunnel will be required to go under it. At the south portal, it must be possible to have it begin even with the N. side Queens Quay sidewalk. Its 90 meters to the S. side Harbour St. sidewalk. That's 7m of drop at an 8% grade. At the north end, I would have the tunnel emerge roughly in front of the ACC. Simplifying this tunnel would certainly remove cost from the QQ East streetcar project and create a QQ through route option. Obviously the Union loop would be abandoned.
2. As a loop option, I would have a loop that goes counter-clockwise around old city hall. With no vehicle traffic on Bay south of Queen, that intersection would be much simpler. Between Albert and Queen, Bay St could be shifted a bit to west to leave space for the south bound Streetcar ROW on the old city hall side.
3. All the way to Bloor. Yes, in time. More pedestrian/transit mall required I would think.
DSC
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It is clearly a complex matter but on re-reading (or skimming!) the 2010 EA (See: http://www.waterfrontoronto.ca/uploads/documents/ebf_environmsntal_study_report_1.pdf ) it is clear why the various surface options were rejected. Most of the north-south streets south of Front Street are already very heavily used (in fact blocked at rush hours) - creating a reserved transit lane on any of them will be virtually impossible and I am sure that closing Bay to cars will be a non-starter. As any solution except a tunnel seems to be both temporary and unsatisfactory it MIGHT be best if WT and the City used the money now available to bring the Cherry Street line right through to Queen's Quay East (QQE) now. This is clearly going to happen eventually and rather than wasting $$ on a loop just north of the rail corridor why not bring the track to QQE and create the 'permanant' loop there? When $$ are found for a QQE streetcar line it would terminate there (and eventually go further east into the Portlands. The Bay (#6) and Sherbourne (#75) buses could probably also end at this new loop and the Pape (#72) could pass by it.
Neil
Active Member
Thanks for the link. So Section 6.2 on page 62 says the portal option on Bay betweeen QQ and Harbour is possible. Certainly shortening an existing tunnel is much cheaper than building an underground wye for QQ east.
On the topic of north-south congestion. Congestion is caused by going from a higher capacity system (downtown street grid) to a lower capacity system (Gardiner onramps). Reducing the former will improve the current situation. On the higher level view, people think that adding road capacity always reduces congestion, and removing roads will increase it. The effect is typically the reverse.
On the topic of north-south congestion. Congestion is caused by going from a higher capacity system (downtown street grid) to a lower capacity system (Gardiner onramps). Reducing the former will improve the current situation. On the higher level view, people think that adding road capacity always reduces congestion, and removing roads will increase it. The effect is typically the reverse.
nfitz
Superstar
Perhaps the best option, as then you can build the (relative to a new portal and bigger Union streetcar station) the relatively cheap permanent line down Queens Quay East. The question is how do you loop it? There's various options - I suppose even including some double-ended version of the new legacy streetcars, given they'll have to buy some more.
If the 2021 passenger forecast at peak on Queens Quay East is 4,250 passengers per hour per direction, it's hard to see how anything other than LRT is going to work or BRT in it's own dedicated lane is going to work.
So the real problem is how you get people to Union or the subway. One way is a one-way loop, up Bay, east on Front, and south on Yonge. There never seems to be too much traffic between Bay and Yonge on Front where losing a lane would make much difference. But perhaps a loss of a single-lane on Bay and Yonge wouldn't be the end of the world? If these were one-way streets it might work ...
Though are these people really going to Union? Perhaps simply running the streetcar up Yonge to Adelaide, and then looping along Adelaide/Victoria/Richmond/Yonge ... though how do you get 2 lanes away from Yonge without starting a political war?
Still, it's going to be controversial no matter what they do, other than beefing up the Bay bus and screwing the people who'll be living in this new district.
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innsertnamehere
Superstar
maybe they move forward with the 1 laning of yonge from college to queen, but move it further south with a streetcar ROW instead of wider sidewalks.
allabootmatt
Senior Member
Toronto transit planning has officially crossed from farce into tragedy. 400 million dollars for barely a kilometer of streetcar ROW? This is insane.
innsertnamehere
Superstar
think of it as $400 million for the complete reconstruction of an underground streetcar loop, as well as a 500 m tunnel, on top of a 1.2 km streetcar ROW. the row itself is supposed to cost less than $100 million, including the complete rebuilding of the street like they are doing for Queems Quay west.
Rainforest
Senior Member
The proposal of converting Bay St. to transit pedestrian mall is interesting. If it can run new streetcars (design load 150 riders) on 2' headways, that will be 30 cars per hour, 4,500 riders per hour per direction. That's more than 10% of Yonge subway's capacity; a noticeable relief.
If the Bay line is combined with the QQ East streetcar line, the ridership on the Bay section will be pretty much bi-directional. In the morning rush, southbound cars would take riders from Bloor subway to the CBD destinations, whereas northbound cars would take QQ East residents to the same destinations. That's very good from the operational costs perspective, as the cars will not run empty in the counter-peak direction.
Note that QQ West streetcars will not fit in the Bay line schedule alongside with QQ East streetcars. If the peak forecast for QQ East is > 4,000 pphpd, then it will need pretty much all streetcar (30 per hour = 2 min frequency) that Bay can handle. Therefore, it might be both cheaper and more effective to leave the existing underground Union loop unchanged, and keep running QQ West streetcars to that loop in the tunnel. QQ East line could be entirely on surface, turning from QQ to Bay and running at the street level above the tunnel up to Union, then continuing at street level all the way to Bloor.
If the Bay line is combined with the QQ East streetcar line, the ridership on the Bay section will be pretty much bi-directional. In the morning rush, southbound cars would take riders from Bloor subway to the CBD destinations, whereas northbound cars would take QQ East residents to the same destinations. That's very good from the operational costs perspective, as the cars will not run empty in the counter-peak direction.
Note that QQ West streetcars will not fit in the Bay line schedule alongside with QQ East streetcars. If the peak forecast for QQ East is > 4,000 pphpd, then it will need pretty much all streetcar (30 per hour = 2 min frequency) that Bay can handle. Therefore, it might be both cheaper and more effective to leave the existing underground Union loop unchanged, and keep running QQ West streetcars to that loop in the tunnel. QQ East line could be entirely on surface, turning from QQ to Bay and running at the street level above the tunnel up to Union, then continuing at street level all the way to Bloor.
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Neil
Active Member
I don't see how 2' could be a maximum frequency. The only factor affecting this is the signal priority of the EW cross streets. I would also not see a plethora of stops. With my idea of a loop around old city hall, I would see stops at QQ, Union, S of King, S of Queen and Albert. Also, I would only see the the 509 and QQE line going up Bay. The 510 Spadina line I would keep on QQ with a loop to the east. Eventually it would travel up Cherry and loop at King.
andrewpmk
Senior Member
Closing Bay St. to car traffic is a non starter. Where is bus route 6 supposed to go? The GO buses going to Union Station GO Bus Terminal all use part of Bay as well, where are they supposed to be moved to?
Neil
Active Member
I think you just answered your own questions. Bus traffic is not car traffic.
Rainforest
Senior Member
If the streetcars loop around the old city hall (and do not go all the way up to Bloor), then a 1' frequency might be feasible. This is a valid concept, but (to my understanding) different from drum118's proposal to covert all of Bay St.
On the other hand, if the transit mall with streetcars is extended all the way up to Bloor, then a service more frequent than every 2' would be problematic, both for the crossing E-W streets, and for pedestrians that are supposed to benefit most from the mall. Note that every 2' each way means every 1' combined frequency. Frequent transit is nice when it is reasonably frequent, but below 1' it would start feeling a little harassing.