thettctransitfanatic
Senior Member
The question is, in the future, will this "second line" per say have a UT thread ?
Toronto Ontario Line 3 | ?m | ?s
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The question is, in the future, will this "second line" per say have a UT thread ?
Personally I think that "second line" should be a streetcar tunnel under King. Run it underground from the King/Queen split in Corktown to around Bathurst (maybe even the GTS corridor). Run 4 lines through it:
1) The current King route
2) The Queen route (detouring onto King wherever the DRL happens to exit Queen in the west, and picking Queen up again at the Don River)
3) A Spadina-King-Parliament route
4) A Spadina South-King-Cherry-QQ loop
Operationally, it would be very similar to the Market St Subway in San Francisco, or the Green Line through Central Boston.
mountaingoat
New Member
Newbie here. IBI Group has been contracted in a joint venture for the preliminary design of Broadview and Carlaw stations on the DRL.
BTW - I live close to the Pape & Danforth intersection and am keenly monitoring the DRL. In Oct/Nov 2018, there was a lot of geotech exploration on Pape and in the parking lot of Calvary Church. Seems in line with the geotech exploration elsewhere in the city on the DRL route.
BTW - I live close to the Pape & Danforth intersection and am keenly monitoring the DRL. In Oct/Nov 2018, there was a lot of geotech exploration on Pape and in the parking lot of Calvary Church. Seems in line with the geotech exploration elsewhere in the city on the DRL route.
Leo_Chan
Senior Member
Probably even less realistic than this, but maybe a Bay Streetcar Tunnel extension from Front to King too.
robmausser
Senior Member
Or Ferry Docks station in Toronto
Bureaucromancer
Active Member
This is actually something I've supported for a while. Solve the Union Loop's problems by turning it into a through station, bring the line above ground early enough to have a junction at King and build continue a Bay streetcar ROW north to Dupont station, looping via Davenport, Dupont and Spadina. Connect to Hillcrest with non-service trackage on Dupont and put a Davenport streetcar in the official plan as a long term possibility. Aside from something of a subway reliever you've created an alternate downtown distributor for passenger arriving on GO and can disperse the various waterfront routes into multiple loops instead of cramming everything into the constraints of a loop at Union. It also brings higher order service to Davenport north of Yorkville, where there's more than a little development pressure at the and pretty bad connectivity.
SaugeenJunction
Senior Member
Not sure if it holds much water, but here is the Minister of Transportation saying that the Relief Line South is his #1 priority moving forward today.
Leo_Chan
Senior Member
While I hope this statement holds, "the first thing to do on [their] list" doesn't mean the first thing to be built and open.
Bureaucromancer
Active Member
Nor does it indicate any particular urgency. Publicly the Tory line on transit has been, since Eves, that sure they'd like to build subways but have no immediate intention of borrowing for them.
smallspy
Senior Member
It's a nice thought, but it isn't likely to happen. The subway tunnels are in the way, and there isn't enough clearance above them to put this theoretical streetcar tunnel there, so they'd have to go underneath. And if that happens, where would you have it surface?
Keep in mind that there will also be a DRL to deal with at Queen as well as the various links of the PATH system across Bay - although with the subway being so deep there should be loads of room to go above it.
Dan
With a 'Waterfront Loop', a Bay extension may not even be necessary, since people could ride around on either Cherry or Spadina.
True, but that's really only one station (two if you count the Union Loop). I'm comparing to larger scale examples of streetcar/LRT systems with a central tunnelled section.
mountaingoat
New Member
I like the idea of selling air rights above stations. Look at some of the densely populated cities in Asia (e.g. Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo), they efficiently use the air rights to create housing and amenities. It can certainly help in managing costs as well.
JSF-1
Active Member
Air rights can be great but keep in mind over in Asia those developments are also owned by the transit company. In Hong Kong for example the MTR has its own Property Development/Management subsidiary which owns those properties. MTR I believe owns a couple of condominiums and a shopping mall or two. It would be interesting to see if such a scheme could work here since I don't think there is a single operator in North America that runs like this. The choice between a one time sale or a recurring revenue stream should be an easy one to make but we would be stepping into unknown territory as far as North American transit is concerned. As well we need to know how to pick our battles, some pieces of land are far more valuble then others so knowing which areas can have the greatest return on investment is key.
Streety McCarface
Senior Member
I feel like just mentioning that could hint ford at privatization, because the MTR, Tokyo Metro, and JR East are all private companies (you don't see many if any Toei lines having giant malls and such, maybe the occasional PATH-like system in Shinjuku or Downtown, but nothing that large).
Regardless, I don't think the TTC has the time, experiences, or resources to manage property and the TTC at once. We barely get enough money to pay for the existing system. How are we going to get another 5 billion for a few condos and office towers?
W. K. Lis
Superstar
It was Major Rob Ford who sold Enwave (see link), a city corporation to Brookfield Asset Management in 2012. It was formally owned by the City of Toronto municipal government (43%) and the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (57%). All for a big one-time payment, instead of continuous revenue. The Ford family doesn't want the folks owning anything.