(TTC-PLEASE CONTACT ME – GEORGE_VIC_BELL@HOTMAIL.COM)

Steve: George — please note that the 20 second polling interval is set by the design of the TTC’s system, not by Nextbus. For the level of analysis you are talking about, believe me, every 20 seconds is more than enough.

In fact the Open Data policy did not appear on the very busy September agenda, and the matter died with the expiry of the Miller/Giambrone administration.

Steve: The detailed design of the Leslie Street reconstruction is a matter of some debate between the TTC and local community which is still in progress. There is some major utility work (moving a high voltage hydro line, and moving/replacing an ancient wooden watermain (yes wooden!) both of which conflict with the new track connection. As for the future, an alternate connection may eventually come west through the Port Lands via Commissioners Street at the southwest corner of the site.

Steve: Considering that the Cherry line won’t be running until late 2015 and we should have had two years’ worth of new car deliveries by then, I am not worried about the fleet size. One of the many issues facing the “new” Commission is some realistic planning and budgeting for fleets, maintenance facilities and service. We have seen far too much creative writing to meet budget targets over the past few years (including some in the Miller/Giambrone era) rather than a hard-nosed look at what we need to run the transit system.

So this line will go up to King, correct? As a spur line of the 504? (Sorry, still getting my bearings together with this project).

Steve: Yes, it will branch off of King. The exact routing for the “Cherry Street” car is not yet determined. Eventually, the line will connect under the rail corridor southwest to Queen’s Quay and southeast to the Port Lands. That’s far enough in the future that nobody really knows what the routes will look like.

Also, Steve.. this is off topic but have had a look at this, that just popped up on the TTC website?

Steve: This looks like a public-facing version of an internal report. The problem with the “targets” they are reporting is that they are ridiculously easy to meet in some cases. All those green check marks show is that they are hitting the same old level of “service” they have aimed for over past decades. I will take this up in a separate article.

Steve: Perish the thought we might do anything quickly around here.

I also noticed one of those city development proposal signs on the south side of the Keating Channel at Cherry Street for a mixed-use property. I wonder if the developers are starting to move into that area. I guess there is also the whole issue of how contaminated that soil is.

Steve, do you have any info on the TTC’s project schedule and scope for Cherry Street? Thanks.

Steve: The track will stay there until the roadbed is ready for its installation later this summer. It’s down at Polson Street because that’s well out of the way and does not block other construction activity. I will check into the scope of work, but at this point believe that it is from either King or Eastern south to the rail corridor.

“Where is this notice posted?”

Someone posted the notice for the Cherry Street construction on twitter.

One question I would ask the TTC is if they’re planning on building the track intersection at King and Sumach as part of this project, or if these rails are to be laid but isolated from the rest of the system in the short term.

Now we just need the Queen’s Quay East project to re-surface (pun intended). I’m hopeful the new Commission can move forward on that one, given Council would likely be supportive.

Steve: I don’t expect to see the piece at King including the intersection laid until much closer to the start of actual operation.

Steve, I’m liking the new mobile theme. The comments seem to load without any issues now.

Steve: The mobile themes are handled by two “off the shelf” Word Press plugins, and they varies depending on the device. Updates arrive regularly. I have nothing to do with the software’s development.

Steve: The streetcar lanes will be on the east side of the street.

But yes, your post is really about changes and impacts to existing service after all.

Steve: Thanks for pointing this out. There had been some debate about whether the track would actually be installed as part of the construction now underway, and this notice confirms that approach. Now if only we could get a similar project underway on Queen’s Quay East.

Where is this notice posted?

“We do great and important work.

People will love what we do because it is great and important work.

Our great and important work speaks for itself.

You question something of ours? Do you do what we do? No? Well of course! We do great and important work. Unless you do what we do, you can not possibly understand.”

Frankly this isn’t just limited to the engineers at this point, it permeates the TTC as an organization (though yes, engineers in general are sickeningly prone to it). If we could break this down it would in my view go a long way to at least making the TTC’s problems solvable.

I thought Phil Orr’s proposal, your critic and most of the comments are of the highest quality and served to flush out most of the issues.

The thing that caught my eye was the $6B price tag and the mid 20k pppd/h estimate.

I’m more likely biased because I went to Waterloo and saw first hand the attitude that has permeated both RIM and the TTC.

We do great and important work.

People will love what we do because it is great and important work.

Our great and important work speaks for itself.

You question something of ours? Do you do what we do? No? Well of course! We do great and important work. Unless you do what we do, you can not possibly understand.

To be fair, the TTC is getting better. But, sometimes … I just shake my head.

I would like to remind the reader that for significantly more than half a century the province of Ontario has relied on the tax revenues garnered from a growing prosperous automotive parts and assembly sector to fund generous government programs. The Government of Ontario invested this money in programs that reached out and touched everyone in this province in a very positive way. However due to the high Canadian dollar the foreseeable long term growth potential of this industry is not sufficient to satisfy the needs of a growing society.

My suggestion is that downtown Toronto has incredible potential for significant economic growth, growth that is for the most part limited by the ability of people to get in and out of the downtown region. The economic potential is limited only by the willingness of all levels of government to invest in the region. I believe that the Government of Ontario and the City of Toronto have a fiduciary duty to make the necessary investment to realise the full potential of the downtown, and to do it in a way that is inclusive and in harmony with the needs of people across the region. It is for these reasons that I believe that the potential to build some form of “DRL” is significantly higher now than it has been at any time in the last quarter century.

1) Presto fair integration that is structured to encourage short commutes from the inner suburbs
2) Increased number of inner suburb GO train stops (ideally structured in a way that does not discourage express commuting from the outer suburbs)
3) Expanded Union Station capacity coupled with the electrification of GO’s train services (including some form of tunnelling along the approach to the station)
4) Increased utilization of the Don Valley corridor for express bus service to the downtown

I think it is important to separate the concept of “downtown relief” from the idea of building subways. Although I am in favour of subways, I feel they are more useful as tools to build growth potential than congestion relief.

The focus should be to spread congestion relief to much of the city and offer a SUBSTANTIAL reduction in commute times. An inclusive system of downtown relief can overcome one of the most vexing obstacles to any form of “DRL”, the absence of political consensus.

Steve: Yes, “downtown relief” is more than one line providing a bypass for Bloor-Yonge. It requires substantial improvements to GO services in areas that otherwise feed into the most congested part of the subway.

“Buses are looping west via Parliament rather than via River as originally planned because Carroll Street, originally conceived as the southbound leg of the loop, has been closed for one block for a new park. This was approved by Council some time ago.”

One would think that basic street information like “this street is going to close permanently as of …” would be handed to somebody at the TTC.

All those high paid engineers and none of them knows how to communicate … it’s like watching RIM, only with trains.

Steve: To be fair to the engineers, I suspect the original plan was made by someone at a much lower level. However in the interest of full disclosure, I must reveal that a significant person in my life is an engineer (who does not work for the TTC or any other transport-related entity), and so I may be biased.

It doesn’t look they are that far away from putting on the asphalt.

Steve: According to the street signs, River is supposed to open at the end of May. We shall see. For a while, it was used as a construction staging area. I think the more likely looping is counter-clockwise from Queen to River to King as this is a gentler turn. That’s the route used by the Don Mills night bus which serves Broadview Avenue when the King car isn’t running. Switching to this loop will save a lot of time for the buses. Whether it will improve headway reliability is another matter.

It would be intriguing to know whether the TTC is trying to manage that shuttle to headway or to schedule. The former makes sense. The latter would guarantee the usual spotty service with short turns to keep operators “on time” even though the route is quite short and the relief point is probably in the middle of the line.

Update on TTC Service Changes on Queen St E and Kingston Rd
May 10, 2012

Over the past few days, Councillor McMahon’s office has received multiple complaints about the inadequacy of replacement buses on the Kingston Rd routes – both in terms of frequency and shortened service (downtown bound passengers needing to transfer at Parliament St), leading to increased waiting and commuting times and frustrated customers.

In response to phone calls and emails from Councillor McMahon and others, TTC CEO Andy Byford has responded with these actions:

- Re-routing a portion of the Queen service north on Broadview to come back south on Parliament and continue West on Queen. This will address delays that may result from the 502 Bus Service

- Supervisory and other staff placed at Parliament during rush hours to report back to CEO Byford on effectiveness of additional measures, and to ensure that gaps between services are managed and customers kept informed

- Discussions are ongoing with the City about moving the detour to alleviate pressure on Connaught and resulting delays

- Transfer between bus and streetcar is not restricted to Parliament. Westbound customers can transfer anywhere between Leslie and Parliament while those travelling east can transfer anywhere between Carroll (east of Don Bridge) and Leslie to an eastbound bus.

The online schedules show the shuttle bus trips at eastbound stops, and westbound for the 301 service (but not for 501?). From this it appears that there’s an attempt (or an intent) to schedule trips at less busy (lower headway) times so that an eastbound shuttle bus arrives two to four minutes after a streetcar, and vice versa westbound. I wonder how successful this actually is in practice.

There seems like a lot of duplication of service between Broadview and Russell. Could they not run the replacement buses via Queen, Coxwell, Dundas, Greenwood, Queen and Leslie, with a loop via Eastern and Mosely? (502s would use Dundas as the connection to Kingston Road and avoid dipping down to Queen.) Use some of the duplicate resources instead by having extended layovers on Mosely (and, for streetcar operators, in Russell) so that there is always a shuttle bus ready to dispatch whenever an eastbound streetcar is approaching (and vice versa for westbound buses connecting to streetcars). Let the supervisors monitor on NextBus or TransSee so that they know when to dispatch in order to make the transfer as short and painless as possible.

Steve: I have noticed that the information given out by operators varies considerably from car to car, and riders are confused by the fact that the streetcar goes to Greenwood, but Leslie is the last stop to make a transfer connection.

I get the impression that there is a lot of ad hoc line management going on, and much depends on who is running the show (if anyone) on any particular day.

I have never seen such a disastrous attempt at trying to move people around.

Buses say Broadview – however drive all the way to Parliament to loop – and don’t let you ride along…and the closest Queen car..is usually trapped somewhere at Greenwood still.

Combined with the fact that some buses have been going out of service at Jones when coming west and the fact that there are now too many people at B-view trying to transfer…the commute is brutal!

Any reason why they won’t or can’t extend the shuttle closer to the core – like the 301 shuttle?

Steve: I am planning to start an article about this project and the massive cock-up of managing the alternate service. Last week, I saw a big lineup of streetcars and autos southbound on Connaught because the same street is used for the streetcar loop and the traffic diversion. Then some idiot parked foul of the exit from Russell Carhouse onto Connaught and everything stopped. Did they get towed? Did the TTC simply pick up their car and move it? No. Everyone waited for a parking officer who arrived just in time for the owner to show up and drive off with no ticket.

As for the buses, yes that Parliament destination is annoying. Originally they were going to loop via River and Carroll until someone noticed that Carroll Street does not exist as a continuous road from Dundas to Queen any more. Of course by then, the schedules were already made up based on the shorter route.

Steve: Yes, although it will probably take two years to complete the transformation.

Are they going to upgrade every platform at the same making this right-of-way operation impossible?

Steve: I don’t know what the construction plan is, but I would not be surprised to see large chunks of the right-of-way impassible. I am going to chase this to find out what is planned. There may be a tradeoff between doing it quickly and minimizing the location of upheavals. Don’t forget that there is some trackwork to be done as well as the platform upgrades.

Also would the new LFLRVs permit transit priority since they will be running at a reduced headway?

Steve: In theory, maybe. The problem is that Spadina is still going to be a busy route, and the city traffic engineers won’t give up priority without a fight. Possibly by the time the route is operating with new cars, we will have a more enlightened, pro-transit Mayor and Executive Committee.

Something that I’ve always been puzzled by staff’s silence on is that there are portions of Eglinton between Keele and Leslie that have slopes of 6%-8%, which the Transit City cars will not be designed to handle (5% is supposed to be their maximum). Finch West had one instance of a slope steeper than 5%, although still less than 6%, but the built form in this part of Finch, or more specifically the lack of a built form along the descent into a valley, allows relatively easy re-grading so that that part of Finch becomes 5.0% when they build the LRT. So there is a valid engineering reason for Eglinton to be underground besides ridership: Difficult terrain.

Steve: They will run on Sundays until construction starts, subject to operator and car availability. This should already be in effect.

Just to confirm, there will be 509-only streetcar service on Queens Quay to Union Station until late July, correct? “Coming off” meaning suspending streetcar service then?

Steve: Yes, and yes.

“Welding of new rail for the reconstruction of track on Queen’s Quay is now in progress in front of the Redpath’s Sugar site.”

May we presume that this means they are starting the re-profiling of the tracks and the automobile lanes along Harborfront? I confess that in Rob Ford’s Toronto I’m happy to see it being done at all but why are they doing it during the summer tourist season?

Steve: The intention is to work on the outer part of the line first to avoid the worst of interference with the events at Harbourfront. This project is starting late, as usual, because of all of the farting around by various agencies who can’t get their acts together in time for an early spring launch.

1. Sheppard LRT is about $1B, while the subway to STC is about $3B – a 200% increase in cost.
2. Finch West, which Ford somehow mentioned as being a possibility for subway, cost about $1B as LRT and possibly about $5B or $6B for subway – a 500% increase.
3. Eglinton is already grade separated for good portions. The LRT cost for Eglinton and the Malvern Extension is about $6B. I would guess that an elevated portion on Eglinton would cost about $0.5B. Thus, to make Eglinton a fully grade separated line, it would increase the cost by about 10%. Phase 2 of Eglinton would also become costlier, but still not that difficult using the Richview corridor.

How about cancelling the SELRT from Don Mills to Agincourt (Kennedy) – since they do not even want it. Then use the money to grade-separate Eglinton. It would also be a great way for Scarborough to get behind a DRL (that goes up to Don Mills and Eglinton).

The act of elevating a transit line really only affects the residents along that 5 or 6km section, due to visual intrusion – aside from the marginal extra cost which is borne by all. It’s a shame that this was never proposed with a choice between elevated or median – no option for underground. Things like stop spacing, running through at Kennedy, and frequency of service – all which improve with grade separation – are a benefit to all who use the corridor, not just those who live directly the short segment in question.

Steve: They are for McCaul from Queen to Dundas, a job that starts in late June.

Steve: The project is timed to merge with Toronto Water’s project as well as the reconstruction of Connaught Avenue and Eastern Avenue. Ot has already been deferred once, thanks to Rob Ford, from 2011. During the summer, the number of buses in scheduled service is much lower (just look at all the service cuts) and they have more than enough vehicles to operate the east end of Queen, Spadina and Harbourfront. If anything, it’s important to get as much of this out of the way while they have spare buses, not wait until the fall.

-that Eglinton is going underground not because the forecasted ridership require grade-separation, but because very many properties would have to be expropriated to maintain 2+ lanes/direction for general traffic,

-Finch between Yonge and Bathurst (especially as one gets closer to Yonge) has a right-of-way width of less than 36 metres, creating the same situation as central Eglinton for several blocks. Yet underground is not being considered at all except for at Yonge Street itself,

-Sheppard, around Kennedy and Midland, has a handful of properties that would need to be expropriated for road-widening. I would understand that going underground just to avoid expropriation for a small number of properties may not be justifiable, which is why I imagine they’re following through with an all-surface alignment around that section.

I generally agree with what Transit City proposed, but am rather confused about what standard they use to make these decisions.

Steve: The section of Finch from Bathurst to Yonge is wider than Eglinton in the “old” parts of the city. Many of the properties are set back from the street while on Eglinton they come out to the lot line. It would be interesting to know exactly how much of the lawns in front of some of those houses actually belong to the city. There is also the option of swinging north to the Hydro corridor, although this would not be convenient for people who now have local service on Finch itself.

An important distinction is between partial expropriation of parking space or lawns for a wider road as against widening that requires building demolition. This is a big issue through Mount Dennis at Weston Road.

The Cherry Street Streetcar is supposed to continue onto Queens Quay East if I’m not mistaken though; it’s also supposed to be on its own ROW. How would this work?

Steve: The street layout at Cherry, Lake Shore and Queen’s Quay is supposed to be substantially revised as part of the Don Mouth reconfiguration. A new underpass will be added to split up the Cherry Street traffic so that it will all fit, and the Cherry right-of-way which is on the east side of the street will swing into the Queen’s Quay right-of-way on the south side of the street.

Steve: No, I don’t agree. People coming down the Weston corridor can connect with the BD subway at Dundas West, that is if Metrolinx ever gets around to building a decent connection. They will also be able to connect to the Eglinton line. The world does not revolve around Union Station.

This logic is the same as building the “U” shaped DRL though. Despite the fact that people would have been able to get off at Cherry Street and Liberty Village and transfer to the DRL in the Metrolinx proposals, Metrolinx deduced this would not provide adequate relief to Union – this is why the entire “Union West” concept came to be.

Steve: Actually “Union West” came about because Metrolinx cannot fit all the trains they want to run into Union Station. This could also be seen as a dodge to avoid having to electrify sooner rather than later, but I’m not sure Metrolinx is devious enough to think of that. As for transferring to a DRL from the streetcar network, that’s a hopeless expectation on two counts. First, people would already be close enough to downtown that the transfer could be counterproductive for many trips. Second, the people we need to divert onto the DRL are not riding the streetcars today — if they were, they would not be a problem. “Diverting” this traffic does not address riders originating farther north in catchment areas that would take them through Bloor-Yonge.

It seems to me that a DRL line could come into downtown anywhere between Queen and Front; people can use the PATH system or get outside and walk to get to and from their workplaces, just as they do now. As long as the DRL line provides direct connections (even if it means some walking – honestly New Yorkers and Londoners do a lot of walking between lines, and nobody says they have second-class subway systems) at either King or Queen and St. Andrew or Osgoode, there’d be no need for transfers at Union.

Steve: The work is between Queen and King. I am not sure when/if the track south of King will be done. In any event, Dufferin Loop is routinely used as a short turn point for King cars. The 521 Exhibition service was dropped through a combination of factors, mainly the lack of streetcar-trained operators to run the extra service, and a desire to run an express bus rather than a local streetcar.

510 Harbourfront… I presume you mean 509?

Steve: Ooops .. yes 509. I will correct the post.

Also not all the demand on Eglinton will be going downtown. Eglinton will be the main access to Pearson Airport so I would expect to see a fair number of long commutes (e.g. Scarborough to Mississauga). By providing an alternative to the severely congested 401, there will be a lot of induced demand (i.e. by making long east west commutes across the top of the city easier and allowing people to avoid the 401, more people who live in Scarborough will accept jobs in Mississauga). Although current travel patterns show relatively few people from Scarborough working in the western GTA, this is really misleading because the 401 has a limited capacity (about 15000/hour, so 60000/direction in a 4 hour rush hour period) and is severely congested (one section of it is the busiest highway in the world) so many people actively avoid it, and if you provided an alternative then it would be heavily used due to the massive latent demand. A grade separated Eglinton line could easily save 10-15 minutes going from Scarborough Centre to Don Mills, from eliminating the transfer at Kennedy and speeding up the trip between Don Mills and Kennedy. Of course, if a subway is ever built along Don Mills, this would increase overcrowding on Eglinton east of Don Mills.

For the same reason, I think it is worth spending the extra money to build subway, not light rail, on Sheppard. Subway will cut the trip from STC to Sheppard/Yonge in half compared to light rail, which provides zero (or slightly negative) time savings compared to buses on this trip. Although it won’t go east of STC there is lower demand in this section. This means that it will be more effective in providing an alternative to the traffic jams on 401 west of Morningside in rush hour. Also there are a lot of new condos on Sheppard, e.g. at Sheppard/Victoria Park, Allen/Sheppard and the Metrogate complex at Sheppard/Kennedy. Although a subway going downtown (downtown relief line/Don Mills line) is desperately needed, it is far from the only place in the GTA where subways are needed. Highway 401 carries far more people than the DVP and Gardiner going downtown combined and an alternative is urgently needed.

Steve: That’s an exercise in drawing lines on a map without looking at how you would actually build them. Just getting a DRL through the core will be hard enough.

Regardless, would you not agree that some form of transportation would have to be established directly between Union and Union West? Otherwise, the DRL will end up simply becoming a bottle neck at UW because riders on GO who arrive there will only have access to one route, not (as Union has) two of them.

Steve: No, I don’t agree. People coming down the Weston corridor can connect with the BD subway at Dundas West, that is if Metrolinx ever gets around to building a decent connection. They will also be able to connect to the Eglinton line. The world does not revolve around Union Station.

Steve: There already is a line linking Union to the Ex. The only problem is that the station at Union is so undersized, and the “traffic signal priority” enroute so pathetic that it won’t be able to provide huge capacity. Don’t hold your breath for the “Bremner streetcar” as that requires major construction at Union Loop for which there is no funding.

As for UTSC and the Sheppard line, there is still talk of that connection, but the line won’t open (thank you Rob Ford, thank you Dalton McGuinty) until long after the games have ended.

I would expect Cherry St to have a streetcar line along it well before the DRL gets built. That line can provide a north-south corridor to/from Broadview station at Danforth Ave (or should I say Erindale?).

I don’t find it necessary to replace an entire streetcar line – that gets into blind ideology without looking at the influencing factors at play in the system. Downtown has enough trackage to make a number of streetcar route reconfigurations viable after service on the DRL is running. While I do think King East would likely and best be replaced (but only if the subway is local like Toronto’s oldest lines), I would still expect King West streetcar service to hit Church St, as the King West cars should continue to roll by both Bay St and Yonge St, even though this stretch tends to be where traffic is worst (the bad traffic actually extends to York St). I tend to agree with the view that a west-end DRL is unnecessary given the potential of existing infrastructure corridors in the west that can provide far cheaper and conceivably more effective solutions. As such, King West should continue as a streetcar corridor (without its eastern counterpart between Church and Sumach Sts.), and I would expect the King West car to overlap with the DRL in the core for something in the ballpark of 2km, because it wouldn’t make sense to force transfers 1km-and-change west of the Y-U line.

1. If the DRL is to go to Union West, and possibly beyond (as some of you have proposed) to the Exhibition, then how on earth could the DRL replace the King Car? Either

a) A new streetcar interchange would have to be built somewhere like St. Andrew or possibly John St. If a station is built there, and the Broadview portion of the streetcar would have to be dropped off the map (which would then leave Riverdale residents without an established connection to the BD line.)
b) An interlined route would have to be built on King, where one portion diverts to Union West, and the other continues into a portion of the city that doesn’t have the density to support it.

Steve: There are times I find the zeal for replacing a streetcar line or two with the DRL a bit unsettling among some of the comments here and elsewhere. The line serves a different market, and the assumption that all of those folks on the King car originate in locations that would easily shift to a DRL is false. Just ride the line to see where people get on. If anything the amount of local origination will increase with new developments along the route.

This reminds me of how the TTC slashed service on the King car by over 50% when the BD subway opened in 1966. They assumed that a
vast majority of riders were transfer traffic from the Bloor streetcar when, in fact, they get on all along the line inward from both ends. That ridiculous assumption and plan was mostly undone a few months after the subway opened.

2. If we consider nfitz’s proposal for just a second (that is, getting rid of the interlined University and Yonge Routes), the Yonge Line could be extended to Union west Station. In doing so, service would be much more equally balanced, as those who got off at Union West would not all be diverted onto one subway line but, as at Union, two of them.

Steve: That’s an exercise in drawing lines on a map without looking at how you would actually build them. Just getting a DRL through the core will be hard enough.

“It’s worth noting that Metrolinx demand projections in general tended to be quite high and included levels of ridership that the infrastructure simply could not handle, notably on GO but also on parts of the subway system. This didn’t stop them from including the numbers in their projections of trips diverted from auto to transit and the associated “green” savings in pollution and congestion.”

So the big question is: are the network and land-use assumptions behind Metrolinx’s modelling incorrect?

Steve: It’s a combination of factors. First, the model does not appear to be capacity constrained and some of the numbers in the background report on demand exceed the actual or likely capacity of various routes. Taking the five “express rail” corridors (Lakeshore west and east, Brampton, Mississauga (Milton line) and Richmond Hill), the peak hour peak point demands range from 17k to 26k on trains running at a 5-minute headway. GO Transit is showing no signs of coming close to aiming at this sort of operation. Between them, these five corridors would bring about 100k trips into Union during the peak hour. How will all of these people get to the trains? Certainly not by parking.

Metrolinx owes us a much more detailed study of network buildout and the evolution of demand over a 25-year period including alternate scenarios. This is essential to “selling” the new revenue tools because people who are asked to tax themselves more need to know what they might get for their investment in the reasonable future, not 25 years out.

Steve: There is no track connection allowing a west to south movement of trains from Sheppard onto the Yonge line, leaving aside the issue of 4 or 6 car train lengths. Presuming that Sheppard trains continue to operate every 5’30″, that’s one train merging in every 11 minutes by your plan, or 5 per hour. In theory that could be fitted in, but the track connections at Sheppard Station are not set up for revenue service.

As for Union, yes turnbacks could be done there, but this would put gaps into the University subway service that would produce uneven loadings.

Ka-Ming Lin said: 500 m spacing for DRL stops will lead to almost all Chester-like stations. That spacing works on YUS through downtown because of the streetcar lines – because each stop has a transfer to another line that is higher order than buses. And the stops being proposed have anemic bus routes on them, if any at all. Jarvis? The 65 Parliament serves less than 5000 people per day. Additionally, B-D will run parallel further north and there is not a lot of land before the lake to the south. “Chester-like” might actually be considered busy for these DRL stops.

The Yonge line has 400-500m station spacing because it’s a local subway corridor that replaced a local streetcar corridor unable meet its crushing demand (in addition to alleviating the Bay and Church corridors that also had streetcar service trying to meet very high demand, but were not being replaced by the subway (even though the Church car ended up disappearing anyway for other reasons)). While the stops do coincide with connecting perpendicular corridors in the core, the bigger factor was the fact that there were many destinations in the core served by the streetcar that was being replaced, and since that streetcar was being replaced, the subway had to be designed to serve the same market at a comparable level of convenience to keep its market share (remember, transit was a profitable business for the City at this point in history).

Since then, there are more destinations downtown along the Yonge corridor than ever, and more continue to unfold. Your claim that the downtown stations are sustainable only because of the connecting streetcar services is mathematically impossible. St Andrew and King stations combined clock about double the King streetcar’s ridership each day. It is known that there are many trips made along the streetcar corridors that don’t involve a transfer to the subway, so the percentage of King and St Andrew traffic that can be attributed to the streetcar must be less than 20% (and even 20% would represent such a high figure that its mathematically probability is questionable). Similar would be true for Queen (43K on streetcar vs. 82K at connecting Y-U stations) and College (41K on streetcar vs. 80K at connecting Y-U stations) as well, and for Dundas (32K on streetcar vs. 100K at connecting Y-U stations) I’d expect the figure to be 10% or less. See the subway ridership (direct PDF link) and surface routes’ ridership if you want to see the numbers for yourself.

Considering that the King car is the busiest streetcar route (albeit nowhere near what Yonge was carrying in the 1940s), it is a natural candidate for a subway corridor because it is an established corridor with existing healthy ridership levels – and full of destinations along it, although some are still up-and-coming to some extent. The proximity to Queen also boosts the candidacy of the DRL through the core, although I don’t think the Queen car should be replaced (although the current route length can’t stand), just alleviated.

You mentioned Jarvis: Nearby are St Lawrence Market, St Lawrence Hall, George Brown College, and numerous popular smaller establishments as well as numerous existing and new developments for local residents. This is a far cry from a “Chester-like” station. Sherbourne is surprisingly dense between Richmond St and the rail corridor, too, and growing. I agree that Parliament St doesn’t look like much now, but I wouldn’t be so quick to write it off – it’s known to be an area that’s gaining popularity. Yonge-Dundas used to be pretty ho-hum once upon a time, too, and now it has ridership higher than King (it should be highlighted that change of that magnitude did not and does not happen overnight). Then there’s Cherry [still Sumach at King] and the West Don Lands, a massive project now under construction. Similar to what Yonge did (particularly with King and Queen stations), this allows the subway line to hit most of the existing streetcar stops if stations have more than one access (which they are required to in modern fire codes). This is how a healthy heavy transit corridor gets maximum effect.

The “Chester-like” station or two I was anticipating were in the area east of the Don River south of Danforth.

Ka-Ming Lin said: Almost every DRL plan between the Financial district and the Don Valley has at least one if not two parallel streetcar lines within one kilometre. With 100 m – 200 m stop spacing. If you want local service, it is already being supplied.

Like with Yonge and Bloor-Danforth, and as I stated in the previous comment I posted, the closest streetcar line to the new subway would in all likelihood be replaced by the subway in order to get the highest system efficiency (not just in the subway corridor, but also by freeing up resources to be deployed in other areas needing surface service improvements), so no, once the subway is in service that stop-every-200m-streetcar service is no longer being supplied, as that’s wasteful duplication.

Ka-Ming Lin said: As for your contention regarding competition with long-haul GO-routes, you’ll note that there are no GO stations (except Union for the plans that include them) located on most DRL plans.

You’re not thinking about networks. The DRL fits into a network, and does not exist in isolation as a standalone entity. Riders come from places beyond the subway stations’ immediate areas; people flow into Finch station from substantial distances away (in many cases, their bus trip to the subway is longer in kilometres than their trip on the subway). While there is an interesting phenomenon in which a large chunk of southbound Yonge traffic that transfers to become westbound traffic at Bloor, there’s a chunk of that downtown-bound traffic that could and should be carried by GO trains, but GO lines doesn’t have enough connections with TTC routes (and those connections that do exist have room for improvement), nevermind the unsettled issues relating to fares. With the Stouffville line especially, if GO lines were an integrated component of Toronto’s transit network, that ran trains all day, a portion of Scarborough-originating traffic that transfers at Bloor-Yonge may be diverted off the subway system. The GO corridors need better coordination with the transit planning future for Toronto, an issue that has lingered for a long time and remains still unresolved today, mostly (but not solely) because Queen’s Park isn’t prepared to put money into fare reform. This affects what the DRL may or may not need to do, or at least affect when the DRL needs to do it (whatever “it” ends up being).

Ka-Ming Lin said:But DRL plans like these, with multi-million dollar stops scattered every couple blocks try my patience. To me, your entire justification is “build it and they will come.” That is the exact same magical pony argument that Scarborough subway folks have been clinging to and if I reject it from my Ford-ite neighbours, I reject it from you too.

You aren’t recognizing the importance of origin-destination pairs in a transit system. Good systems cost money, and politicians need to accept this – as do you. Cutting corners in capital will mean less ridership and worse congestion on the road network. As for “build it and they will come,” it doesn’t apply here since “they” are to a large degree already there – and those that aren’t already there, the market has already been moving at a pretty aggressive clip expecting them to be there, all without any announcement of a subway funding commitment to build a DRL in these areas. They are there, and more are coming, but the subway hasn’t and isn’t being built, and if you weren’t aware, the Yonge subway and King streetcar are difficult to get on at peak periods in the peak direction. The DRL is an established corridor with existing strong ridership in addition to credible projections that show more latent demand (you can’t carry 17,500 an hour with LRT). The numbers and the history of Toronto’s different subway implementation practices paint a different picture than the one you are presenting.

I will also be extremely frustrated if stations on the Crosstown like Oakwood and Chaplain crescent get cancelled for financial reasons making the tunnel portions increasingly wider spacing but then keeping the above ground stops which are between major intersections.

If they ran the LRT above ground portion east of Don mills with the same stop spacing that they would have used if it had remained all underground, could it not produce the speed and frequencies desired to run one continuous route with the SRT?

Steve: It’s not the stop spacing or speed that are at issue. The Scarborough leg will have much higher demand than the Eglinton leg, and through routing presents operational problems the TTC does not want to address.