This post has had its share of problems including some horrendous rearrangements of the text.  Obviously the site does not like the idea of a Queen Subway one bit, and is having indigestion on the subject.

Herewith the remaining comments in this thread.

On February 10, jj wrote …

The only way Queen could be built today is if the stations were spaced closely together and ran out to the suburbs. Most likely resembling this…

Danforth/Victoria Park, Gerrard (PATH-like walking transfer to Danforth GO), Kingston (LRT to Eglinton), Fallingbrook, Neville Park, Beech, Kew Gardens, Woodbine, Coxwell, Greenwood, Jones, Carlaw, Broadview, River, Parliament, Jarvis, St Lawrence dip, Yonge, Osgoode, John, Spadina, Bathurst, Niagara, Shaw, Dovercourt, Dufferin, Jameson, Ronchesvalles, Parkside, Windermere, Humber, continuing down Lakeshore: Park Lawn, Mimico, Royal York, Islington, Kipling, 30th, Long Branch, Horner, Evans, Sherway Gardens.

Obviously it’s a flying-U design but at least it would hit the most nodes/trippers that way. This would diminish the need for surface routes through downtown and 504, 505 could be scaled down to bus routes, the former temporary service only. Anyone have a ballpark figure how high the ppd (or pphpd) would be for this line? I’m guessing 125,000+ since 501 alone exceeds 55,000 and all south of Bloor bus/streetcar routes, YUS loop and some GO volumes would crossover to this line.

Steve:  Those figures are all-day, not peak hour volumes.  A rough rule of thumb is that half of a route’s loading occurs during the two peaks, and of that, the peak hour carries half of the total.  Thus, a route with 50,000 riders carries 25,000 of them split between the two peaks, or 12,500 each, and carries 6,250 of those during the peak hour.  If the route has higher offpeak demand, the ratios change.

This figure is not a peak point load, but an overall load.  Many of the streetcar routes have a lot of local traffic, and even without that, the east-west streetcar lines are really two routes (one from the east, one from the west) from the point-of-view of load distribution.  Therefore, as a round number, I would expect that 3,000 is an upper bound to the peak demand on a route like Queen with an overall 50,000 weekday demand.  Even if we double the corridor to 100K, that’s still only 6,000 peak hour peak point, and it assumes a greater concentration of destinations that actually exists on Queen or King.

On February 10, Mimmo Briganti wrote …

All this talk, and the basic facts get overlooked. Read the TTC’s own studies people!

Surface on-street operation will never be competitive with the automobile, especially given our cold climate. The TTC has known this for a long time. Subways are old technology, and LRTs are not? LRTs are more flexible than subways? How … can they pass each other like buses? What about power outages? What about the continual state of track reconstruction that never seems to end? How many buses can I buy for the price of one $5M streetcar … five? That’s double the capacity.

To the other poster … check your facts. Bloor-Danforth was a heavy streetcar line in the 50s/60s, but a light subway line in its early days. Once BD and YU were separated, BD ran in a 4-car configuration until the 70s.

Steve:  The BD line cannot be compared to a Queen/King line for the simple reason that the BD line had a large catchment area via feeder buses to deliver passengers, and this was able to grow given the location of the subway across the middle of the city.  The same is not true of a Queen/King line which at best can hope to compete with GO Transit and the BD subway in southern Etobicoke.

The track construction issues, as anyone who reads this blog regularly will know, are a legacy of very bad construction techniques that the TTC abandoned in the early 1990s, although not until after they built the original Harbourfront line.  We have two more years of rebuilding the crap, and then the level of major track repairs will drop considerably.

As for power outages, I vaguely remember walking home because the subway wasn’t running in the last blackout.

If you are going to make arguments for subways, at least make cogent ones.

On February 11, John Galeazza wrote …

Sorry Steve for turning this into a Queen Subway discussion. My point was not to build the Queen line today but to build it in the 60’s 70’s and 80’s of the TTC’s rapid expansion instead of the minor extensions to the B/D, YUS, York, and Sheppard lines, and how those decisions made decades ago have handcuffed TTC today. For example were Kipling, Islington, Royal York, and Old Mill ‘Absolutely’ necessary additions to the network? Or could they have been better served by streetcars/LRT? Had that money been used to build the Queen line back then and expand the streetcar/LRT network I believe we’d be better off.

Queen subway aside Dave Fischer has the right idea. Which is the same thing I was trying to say before being lost in all the Queen chatter. Instead of paring back streetcars in the 70’s and 80’s TTC should have built a web of streetcar lines from every (or at least the major 80%) subway station in the system.

Expanding the reach of the subway further than simply walking distance.

[I believe that this comment was cut off with an incomplete thought.]

Steve:  The great tragedy of the 60s and 70s was that the TTC was on the verge of building a suburban LRT network, but this was killed by Queen’s Park and its dreams of high-technology (the Maglev system that eventually morphed into the RT).  Meanwhile within the TTC and the larger construction/engineering fraternity, there is a strong lobby for subway construction because it (a) costs more, (b) employs more, and (c) avoids nasty problems like taking road space away from motorists.

On February 11, Aaron Williams wrote …

Those who argue that money is the main obstacle are probably right, but honestly, the quickest way through or into downtown is via subway and I think that a subway on or near Queen Street is inevitable.

There is little room for ROWs downtown unless they are split, for example EB on Queen, WB on another street (is this possible?) so where is the speed going to come from? Banning cars or parking for all or part of the day on these streets is simply a non-starter, so you will always have streetcars in mixed traffic. ROWs outside the core are, generally, more likely due to wider streets out there.

So, think of it: An extensive streetcar feeder network for a downtown relief/Queen subway with close station spacing = the best of both worlds. I think this would be a highly attractive option for a lot of people in the 416 and would be a great way to reduce car trips into downtown. Despite transit being a lot cheaper, people with the choice now mostly choose to drive because downtow transit is seen as slow and unreliable.

Steve:  The problem with this outlook is that it assumes the primary goal is to get into and through downtown, rather like people speeding by on the Gardiner, rather than serving all of the neighbourhoods along the line.

On February 11, Dave Fisher wrote …

A quick response to the concerns raised about my comment of 10 Feb.:

I do not believe that LRT is the “only” solution; as I said there will be a time and place for heavy rail/subways, but we need to build the local transit culture first by ensuring that the buses and streetcars are reliable and comfortable

Subways cause vibrations, too. Lots of vibrations.

LRT has the potential to be far, far quieter than Toronto’s streetcars currently are. Right now we are using big, old, heavy vehicles that were over-designed. The new generation of sleek, low-floor trams that will replace these red “rockets” will be lighter (comparing our current ALRV with a Alstom Citadis tram of the same capacity, the Citadis weighs a whopping 20 tonnes less, drastically reducing noise, vibration, and track wear.

As Steve said, proper (finally!) track construction techniques virtually eliminate the noise concern, even more so when coupled with the lighter vehicles that we’re getting.

You’re correct – people in Toronto can be vocal about their fear of LRT/Trams/Streetcars, and the TTC hasn’t done much to lay rest to those fears. We need to re-build examples of modern, well-constructed LRT routes where they have already been accepted (Harbourfront, Spadina, St. Clair) in order to prove that Toronto’s current streetcar system is NOT what we are trying to emulate. It will take time, but when we’ve got well-designed routes running modern vehicles, people will warm to it, just as they have in Europe and Australia.

On February 11, P. Outmet-Storrs wrote …

Steve, I’m just being a devil’s advocate here. I love LRT and I’ve been a die-hard transit user all of my life who doesn’t own a car. It’s easy to get a consensus amongst transit advocates – it’s another story when you start talking to the 75% of the population who are car owners who only understand subways.

Steve:  All the more reason for some good publicity and advocacy, something the TTC is not very good at.

On February 11, andrew wrote …

Although I definitely do not agree with it, there is a bit of perception in this city that streetcars and therefore LRT are SLOW. Spadina, with its super close stops and poor signal priority does nothing to dispel this notion either. Any word on how St. Clair will fare w/r/t signal priority?

Steve:  I have not heard anything definitive on St. Clair yet, and suspect that someone will cook up some excuse to leave the whole thing turned off until the project is completed.  I will investigate.

On February 11, Nicholas Fitzpatrick wrote …

I’m concerned Steve, that you are shooting down a Queen Street (or similiar) subway for the wrong reasons.

Your shooting it down on technical reasons. However I think in reality, if someone was to give TTC 30-billion over the next 10 years for capital spending, that technically a Queen subway (with Bloor type spacing from Bathurst to Broadview) would be a no-brainer. The YUS and BD subways are running close to capacity in peak periods, and would be pushed beyond the limit with even a 20% increase in TTC usage – even after the increased capacity of the automation project.

Steve:  Spending money where it is really needed, avoiding huge neighbourhood disruptions, and improving transit now, not after decades of construction focussed on a few corridors, may be “technical issues”, but to me they are central to proper planning.  Politically, I’m a flaming lefty, but am always amused at how the right just loves to spend money on transit provided that it doesn’t get in the way of cars.

I’m getting the impression is that your real concern is that the construction of such a subway would gut the remaining streetcar network, and draw away funds from further expansion. And I agree … if we only have limited funds, we can get much more bang for the buck from an expanded network such as the TTC is heading towards, than we would from using the money on either the Shepherd or Queen subways (looks like Spadina is a done deal).
 
However, let’s be honest – if we had $3 billion a year, wouldn’t we be looking at some kind of subway into the core, with an alignment similiar to the downtown relief line? Then we would be focusing on new streetcars to link into this, as well as good service on some of the remaining routes into downtown – and perhaps some new ones (such as Parliament or Dufferin).

Steve:  Demand into the core originates, broadly speaking, from three different types of area.  One is the far suburbs where only GO Rail or the subway are viable options for the volumes and distances involved.  One is the old city, too far for walking, but also with the demand spread out over many neighbourhoods without an easy way to concentrate it on one line.  The last is the growing population right downtown who take either a very short transit ride, or walk to work.  The shorter the commute, the less viable it is to divert people miles out of their way to a rapid transit line.

The bottom line however, is that we don’t have that type of funding – and likely will not, unless someone has the guts to put in a guaranteed revenue stream such as road-tolling. So serious consideration isn’t necessary. But let’s dismiss the plan for the right reasons.

Though I am concerned that in 15 years from now, if all the streetcar expansion is a success, that we will have even more capacity issues along the King/Queen corridor … though perhaps this can be mitigated through increased capacity along Dundas, Front, Bremner, Lakeshore, etc. Or even a frequent (15-minute) local-GO service from Port Credit to Scarborough East with 3 or 4 additional stations along the route (Parliament, Queen Street E, etc.).

Steve:  GO is a regional service that should not be handling traffic from such close-in stops as Queen or Parliament.  That’s what the waterfront LRT line is for with its planned population.

On February 11, James Bow wrote …

Here’s a simple factoid which should help explain why Steve and many others favour new LRTs and BRTs over subways: subways cost ten times to build than standard LRTs. They do not carry ten times the people.

Steve:  Let’s be fair.  That 1/10 figure is a bit of a stretch, and 1/5 to 1/4 would be more appropriate.  I would rather aim high for LRT costs and be happily surprised, than cite a low figure and have the subway advocates demolish a proposal by saying “we told you so”.

We need transit improvements throughout the city as soon as possible. We need more vehicles downtown to support the intensification there, and the good folks out in northern Etobicoke and northeastern Scarborough really have little incentive to get out of their cars.

If we had all the money in the world, we’d be building a downtown relief line, finishing the Sheppard line and putting a subway beneath Eglinton Avenue, but we don’t have all the money in the world. We barely have enough money to maintain the buses, streetcars and subways we currently have in a state of good repair, so the likelihood that we can improve service in the downtown and in northern Etobicoke AND northeastern Scarborough, much less the rest of the city using subways is unrealistic, unfortunately.

The Ridership Growth Strategy proposes feasible improvements that can be achieved with far less money than would be required to get all of the subway extensions we want. You can argue about the need to stand up for Toronto and get more of the funding that we deserve, but I don’t see how shooting the moon with unrealistically expensive proposals accomplishes that. To stand up for Toronto, we stand up for Toronto. We explain our needs and, if Queen’s Park doesn’t listen, we say it again, and again, louder.

We need to prioritize our goals so that we can accomplish them with what funds become available. And that priority should be, in order of highest importance to lowest importance (but still important).

Maintain the system we got. Continue to replace our bus fleet, replace our streetcar fleet, rebuild and improve our current subway infrastructure, find some way to rebuild or replace the Scarborough RT. The $700 million capital budget for the TTC this year is a good first step, assuming that budget hawks don’t pare this down, and assuming we don’t lose momentum in 2008 and the years beyond. We have a backlog to clear here, though (witness how the costs of streetcar track maintenance will drop after 2009), so once we bite the bullet, we may have more resources to tackle priority two fter five years…

Expand our surface network. Increase peak and off-peak service. No more waiting longer than 20 minutes for a bus or 10 minutes for a streetcar. Extend LRTs across the Waterfront and into the suburbs. It’s not fancy, but it will get the job done for more people than a single subway extension, and it will cost less.

THEN build more subways. Finish the Sheppard subway, then consider if a York University line is really needed, or if we should be thinking downtown relief, a new line beneath Eglinton, or whathaveyou.

In here should also be an examination of how we can reduce fares and improve fare collection, so that our buses and streetcars spend less time idling, waiting for passengers to drop tokens into the farebox.

Here ends the debate, at least until there is something new to talk about.