News   Mar 28, 2024
 937     2 
News   Mar 28, 2024
 536     2 
News   Mar 28, 2024
 831     0 

Danforth Line 2 Scarborough Subway Extension

Interesting that Miller killed the retrofit (#2), Council killed the merged line (#1), with backroom Liberal help. The Liberals and Council killed the LRT (#3) and Tory stripped riders from the SSE (#4).

While Ford was Subways! Subways!! Subways!!!, Miller was LRT and nothing else. So happy that both of these people are gone.
 
Can we channel the expertise in this forum to work on SmartTrack 2.0?

SmartTrack 2.0

Convert the Stouffville line to EMU with 3-4 minute headways. The route goes along the Lakeshore (4th track installed), then at Gerrard and Pape we go down the DRL tunnel, switching the DRL technology to EMU as well. The Crosstown under Queen is now EMU avoiding all the Union Station issues. There are suggests to curve to run under King or Wellington for greater functionality. Either way, we meet up with the UPX, which we then salvage by converting it to EMU and add a few more stations and serve west Toronto. With the DRL now underground EMU we go up Pape, build a couple of bridges across the Don Valley and then up Don Mills Road.

The Don Mills/Stouffville tunnel would be triple track.

A less effective alternative would be to merge the two lines together, the outside track requiring a flying junction. The most effective method is to use 4 tracks.

The cheapest would to terminate one line at Pape and Gerrard and continue in town with the other line, not sure riders would go for it.

Apparently the triple track function doesn’t work well in New York because the return track can’t handle the load of two tracks. Maybe using station bypasses to let trains pass each other to help move trains out of the tunnel on the middle track. The idea is to have both dedicated tracks inbound in the morning and outbound for the evening. At some point after the morning rush hour all trains on both lines have to pull into a station and all crews have to reverse direction. Both lines require signals in both directions. You can tell, I don’t have transit knowledge.


This idea is for brainstorming. The idea is to get Metrolinx to work on a digestible project where they can gain experience with PTC and EMU’s. It would be easy on Stouffville and UPX. Toronto needs both crosstown and RL (DRL) so it would be a good connector. We can isolate all the Union Station issues.

http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/transit-fantasy-maps.3005/page-292#post-1109076

This and similar proposals have been debated here a few times. I believe they have merit.

At the same time, I do not see a politician who is ready to champion such a deep revision of the current transit plans.
 
Part of Coffey's point though (I think) is that the subway without stops is silly. Lawrence East is one of our busiest surface corridors, so it really makes one wonder why a station is omitted. Shortening the line 2km south of Sheppard is debatable as to its 'silliness'. It's also one of our busiest surface corridors, but it's not like we're bypassing it - merely not extending it as far.

Another thing I think Coffey is showing as silly is giving 2km RT-like stop spacing for a commuter rail line, in quintessential suburbia, but at the same time giving an RT line commuter rail-like stop spacing (6km). It's backwards, and there's no way a subway should/could proceed without an inline station at Lawrence.

Another thing that's silly is using a flat TTC fare for GO. It's messing with the modeling for SSE and the DRL. Why didn't we see this with TYSSE and YNSE? Both those lines showed no fare integration in place. One of them is unbuilt, so let's see the numbers showing what fare integration (or fares on par with a subway) can do.

Also, do we have a ridership estimate that includes a Lawrence station (both w/ and w/out GO+RER and its varying scales of fares)?

This is exactly my issue with all this. Why delay things for people on SmartTrack/GO-RER with extra stops on Ellesmere/Lawrence when things are supposed to be an express service, when we can have a Lawrence East stop on the Scarborough subway instead?

Won't cannibalize ridership for the subway, provides more local service, isn't a ridiculous 6km one-stop tunnel, and users won't have to deal with less frequent SmartTrack frequency and more expensive GO fares.

This is the worse political transit mess I've ever seen...

Now I'm pissed off and my councillor will hear an earful :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
Denzil Minnan-Wong will have an open ear, I am sure.
 
If they won't go with a SkyTrain then just change the bloody name from Smart Track to just subway and have the line split at Elesmere for one going north to Stoufville and one east to STC/Centennial.

Have them run every 3 0r 4 minutes for combined service of every 90 to 120 seconds and call it a day. Use subway catenary subway trains so the people in Scar can wrap their little heads around the idea that they are getting a subway. It would save the city billions, leave Lawrence with a station, get rid of the Y&B transfer, take FAR less time, and be faster to downtown than a Danforth extension.

Only in Toronto would this even be a conversation . Show the Scarberiens how it would be a subway, frequency, and mock-up of a catenary subway so they don't think it's a EMU, and entice them with the fact that it will get built years before the one stop subway chugs into town. Have 10 open-houses all over Scar over a 2 month period so that everyone gets a legitimate chance to see what they are being offered. Then hire 4 different polling companies to do very large polls over a 3 day period at different times with the same question as to whether you agree with the plan or not at different time and methods {ie phone/internet} and then take the info from all 4, average it and 50% plus 1 wins.

This will put this non-stop debate to an end once and for all and take the decision out of the hands of the sleazy politicians and Scarberians will end up with the transit plan they want.

This could be organized and completed within the next 4 months so that the choice can be made BEFORE ST begins planning /construction.
 
The problem is, would this line be a short spur from Kennedy to STC (or even to Malvern), or would it be a continuous line that connects to many parts of Toronto.

I heard no complaints from anyone in Scarborough when the SRT was connected to the Eglinton line. They didn't even care about the technology, as long as it offered the connectivity, capacity and reliability of grade separated transit.

The problem is not the people of Scarborough. City left politicians are trying to David Miller legacy, and pushed for LRT. Then there are the Liberals who have been working working in the background to push for the subway. They also manipulated Council by not releasing the Crosstown report (Metrolinx, June 2012), which said that the combined route route best.

I think if you ask Liberals, they would say the Scarborough transit plan is working perfectly. After all, they won a majority, and that is what the ultimate purpose of transit is. And anyone opposed to the Scarborough subway, blames others and continues to vote Liberal. That, I would say, is a brilliantly formed plan.
 
[QUOTE="BurlOak, post: 1125664, member: 20718"
I heard no complaints from anyone in Scarborough when the SRT was connected to the Eglinton line. [/QUOTE]

The people of Scarborough vote against the SRT with their feet. The 86, 116 bus routes are a longer trip but heavily used because they go directly into Kennedy station. The SRT has spastic service, long arduous transfer at Kennedy station and makes useless stops with no one getting on or off.

Considering the billions of dollars involved, there is no concern that the residents of Scarborough living north of the 401 get inequitably poor TTC service compared to the rest of Toronto.
 
Have the line directly go to STC by splitting the service.......one to Stoufville and one to STC.

The Liberals may have pushed the subway for political reasons but there is NO way in hell they would renege on promised money if a vote by Scarberiens backed a ST/subway. Just as they tried to get votes with a Danforth extension, they will try to get votes with ST/subway. They will do what is most politically palatable and follow the poll/plebiscite.
 
Have the line directly go to STC by splitting the service.......one to Stoufville and one to STC.

The Liberals may have pushed the subway for political reasons but there is NO way in hell they would renege on promised money if a vote by Scarberiens backed a ST/subway. Just as they tried to get votes with a Danforth extension, they will try to get votes with ST/subway. They will do what is most politically palatable and follow the poll/plebiscite.

Lack of capacity at Union means that the idea of running GO trains to STC is not viable. If GO trains went to STC then you would be transferring at Kennedy or Scarborough GO.
 
Do not use current passenger volumes, or even projected volumes over the next 10 years. If the zoning is changed to allow for higher densities, the Line 2 extension to the Scarborough Town Centre maybe justified. But only if they go through with it, in 100 years, it will be justified.

After all, in 1915, there was hardly anything going on The Danforth.

torontocivictransportation1915.jpg


Look at it now, 100 years later.
 
We'll get the future based on the quality and integration we build today. The main reason Toronto is what it is today is because of the quality investments they made years ago. Period.

The Downtown Political elite is in complete Shamblesville these days. It seems the time has come to shut up and pay up to integrate the neglected suburbs in fair manner. As its seem we finally some strong leadership for these people & long overdue. Certainly not easy to fight thru the assault of the local Political media giant that has been relentlessly pushing a complete transfer laden separate network on TORONTO's "burbs". Hopefully we can put this subway & the UTSC LRT to bed and focus on the design aspect only then get back on track to finalizing Sheppard.

Certainly one of the few transit related articles from the Sun. And I fully get its just a chance to jab their Political crony counterpart but nice to read that the powers that be are done with the debate

http://www.torontosun.com/2016/06/18/duguid-slams-yapping-scarborough-subway-critics
 
Last edited:
'This shall happen, and all y'all criticizing need to shut up. But don't look at me to pay for it.'

It' those criticizing that they have known that all along they have to pay the price of inclusiveness & they don't like that idea. They're the ones who have benefitted off the subway for decades & many live near stations with stops that will pale in comparison to STC's ridership.

This week Duguid & the Province basically told this sophisticated Toronto group to give the exhausted Bully assault against Scarborough and pay up. Time to move on and get building.
 
This week Duguid & the Province basically told this sophisticated Toronto group to give the exhausted Bully assault against Scarborough and pay up. Time to move on.

Did you notice the bit where he isn't pony any additional dollars up? That's his skin in the game - enjoy the ride.

AoD
 

Back
Top