21 thoughts on “Mimico By The Lake”

1. Steve,

   Great post, but one correction. I’m sure you’re thinking of the abandonment of streetcar service west of Mimico Creek, which I agree, looks like a possible result of the Park Lawn loop. It would take a time machine to prevent abandonment of service west of Etobicoke Creek, as that disappeared back in 1935 (with the short return during the Second World War to the arms plant).

   It’s funny, this Park Lawn loop idea, since at the same time, LRT lines are planned all across the inner suburbs. The Lake Shore trackage is a rare legacy of the various radial lines, connecting distinct towns and villages to Toronto and each other.

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2. Hi Steve,

   Is “abandonment of the streetcar line” a bad thing on any route? Please note that when the ridership is not high, smaller vehicles (buses) can provide more frequent service than larger vehicles (ALRVs and especially the future huge streetcars) for a given cost. Plus, an express route for buses from southern Etobicoke exists already – that’s Gardiner …

   So, what would you think of this arrangement:

   – A bus that runs all-stops from Long Branch to Lakeshore / Park Lawn area, connects to the streetcar terminus there, then merges into Gardiner and becomes a downtown express (fares like on 196 YorkU, 192 Pearson, 190 STC, rather than on 141-144 Premium Expresses);
   – Middays and late evenings, this bus uses Park Lawn / Queensway / S Kingsway to connect to Jane subway, instead of going downtown;
   – Queen streetcars serve the Park Lawn to Neville section.

   The above scheme is, in a sense, a variation of your own “split the 501” plan, except the Long Branch service is provided by buses rather than streetcars. Potential advantage of that: more frequent service due to smaller vehicles, and faster access downtown thanks to the use of Gardiner.

   Steve: Given that the TTC spent a great deal of money rebuilding all of the track from Humber to Lake Shore, and the line is now part of Transit City, abandonment isn’t in the cards. Park Lawn Loop is a leftover from an earlier way of thinking about this area.

   One concern with your proposal is that it eliminates all day service via a WWLRT and substitutes a connection to Jane Station. Also, ridership on Lake Shore is down thanks to rotten service, and if this area redevelops as an “Avenue”, higher capacity will be needed.

   I won’t even mention the speedy traffic flow on the Gardiner Expressway or the gyrations needed for a bus to/from that road to make a proper connection with the core.

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3. Mimico GO Station and Parking has an odd history. On the Lakeshore West Line, it has one of the smallest parking lots, and no direct connection to another form of rail transit. Long Branch, Exhibition, Bloor, Danforth, and Kennedy, while having no GO Parking, connect to other rail vehicle services in place of it. Kipling has parking together with the other rail connection (which should make such parking unnecessary, but that’s another topic).

   It also happens to be right by a Gardiner offramp. This makes it obvious why there is demand for a parking expansion at Mimico GO — although I believe it was expanded quite recently as I recall, but I could be mistaken.

   The WWLRT is unlikely to any impact on that parking demand for the GO Station since it will not service the GO Station — nor should it since it will connect to the same line at Long Branch and Exhibition as well as Union anyway, so the connectivity is already established at all the other 416 Stations along that line.

   Since the markets are not that compatible anyway, and seeing as how Mimico GO will not be a transit hub of any sort, it is reasonable to try and work with the demands for more parking at the GO Station (although this needs to be handled in a way that does not harm its walk-in usage, which is a high ratio of users at Mimico).

   The WWLRT will not be the “express” they are looking for though. WWLRT is still local, as is the subway, but they are medium-haul locals rather than short-hauls. SuperGO is probably the real express Mimico is interested in, since it only makes one stop along the way to downtown.

   Throwing in a piece of curiosity into the mix: as far as I know, the TTC is still investigating its options about a Cloverdale extension from Kipling for the subway. I believe they won’t know until 2009, but if that goes through, would there be any odds of seeing the Lakeshore car turn north from Long Branch to service Cloverdale via Sherway? I believe that a Sherway subway would be a total failure and terrible for the network, and an LRT between Long Branch and Cloverdale could put a plug into that scheme (which is apparently on some politicians’ radar for selfish reasons) as well as fulfill the wish of residents to have a faster access up to the subway from the far west end of Lakeshore – and if integrated as part of the WWLRT, promote greater bi-directional usage of the line at all times of service, since network connectivity overall gets improved (even the MT Dundas LRT would also connect to a Cloverdale service) – not just to downtown, as the residents requested.

   Steve: The TTC was looking at the Cloverdale extension, but the projected cost is astronomical because they plan to put all of it underground. An LRT connection north from Lake Shore is intriguing, but I wonder whether Cloverdale is really enough of a draw to justify that sort of service. The main reason for looking at a subway was to serve new residential developments, not the mall itself as a destination.

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4. When you refer to the WWLRT as an “express route to downtown”, are you saying it will make limited stops, or that it’d be all on private ROWs? I’d assumed there were stops serving Liberty Village, along Bremner, etc. If so, local service vs. total trip time for Mimicoers (?) will be a tricky balance.

   Steve: Yes, “Express” is tricky to achieve, and I suspect that regular, reliable service will reduce travel times far more than any “express” operation.

   The WWLRT would be comparatively fast from Sunnyside to the CNE even with stops serving south Parkdale, but east of the CNE, it becomes a local route. One outstanding question is whether the line will come into Union via hte existing 509 Harbourfront alignment, or swing north up Fort York and Bremner via a new connection. There is also the little matter of the capacity of Union Loop to handle all of the projected traffic.

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5. Regarding the abandonment of streetcar lines, the TTC once did a study that found the break-even point between streetcars and buses was on routes that carried more than 3,500 people per hour per direction peak (I think).

   I don’t think any of our routes hit that level anymore, which means that when streetcars are used, we’re paying more money for less frequent service. A lot of the routes could probably get better, more frequent service if buses were used instead. And things will only get worse with the new fleet of double-length streetcars. Off peak headways on St. Clair and College will probably approach 15 mins with the new cars.

   Steve: The Service Standard dictate the following design capacities for surface vehicles:

   Low Floor Bus: 55
   CLRV: 74
   ALRV: 108

   For a 120 second headway, this translates to an hourly capacity of 1650 for buses, 2220 for CLRVs and 3240 for ALRVs.

   The Spadina car operates every 2 minutes in the pm peak and the only realistic way we will get more capacity on that street is to run longer vehicles or 2-car trains.

   Finch East runs a 90 second headway, but half of the service stops only at Express locations. This route has problems with bus congestion, and a 90 second headway will always be bunched because of interference from traffic signals. At 90 seconds, the theoretical capacity is 2,475 pph, but this is not really applicable to a narrow street downtown.

   I have always been quite suspicious of the TTC’s calculated break-even points for bus or streetcar operation both because of their long-standing bias against streetcars and because they ignore the operational issues of the headways implied by high capacity bus service.

   Much higher capacities have been cited for BRT-type operations. However, these depend on reserved rights-of-way, some degree of express operation, and stations with enough space to handle the traffic of so many vehicles.

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6. As a resident of south Etobicoke, I can say that Cloverdale is really a minor mall, not a destination for most people. What is a major destination is Sherway and the big box stores to it’s north. Serving Cloverdale with a subway stop doesn’t make much sense to me, except to intercept Mississauga buses even sooner.

   The TTC did not mention anything about a B-D subway extension at the recent Kipling-Islington Station Modernization meeting, and given the major move of the MT bus terminal and new GO bus terminal at Kipling in this redevelopment, extending the subway to Cloverdale seems to be just political wishful thinking.

   However, Sherway Gardens definitely needs a subway extension. Traffic in the area is getting horrendous, and a new quite high 50 story or so twin tower condo abuilding at Sherway’s southwest corner, mean traffic is only going to get worse.

   Think of the major malls in Toronto connected to the subway, and how much ridership they generate: Yorkdale, Fairview, Eaton Centre, plus minor malls such as Warden Power Centre. Toronto appears to be unique in North America in this respect. The only other mall on rapid transit (excluding downtown malls) that I am aware of is Metrotown on Vancouvers Expo SkyTrain line, and it too is a major generator. But I do think that the malls should pony up millions for being connected to rapid transit, they will be getting millions more patrons a year at the expense of the city.

   Personally, I do not shop at malls, and much prefer and support local street merchants. But malls do attract people, especially with cars, and as malls are such land abusing parking lot monsters, the more rapid transit connection to them the better.

   Steve: I agree that Sherway makes a lot more sense than Cloverdale, but I’m not holding my breath for a subway extension. Also, the Warden Power Centre was demolished quite some time ago. I ride past the vacant lot every day enroute to and from work. It was a victim of the general economic depression in southern Scarborough.

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7. I remain worried that we’re steadfastly ignoring an obvious way to expedite the incoming to the core transit by not exploring the conversion of the Front St. road folly to a Front St. transitway as is noted, the WWLRT becomes a local service east of the Ex, and there may be another $150M to adjust the Union Station loop for it that isn’t in the $540M cost, plus the $255FSE cost.

   For that amount of money I think we could get a Front St. transitway on Front St. itself and its Extension through to Dufferin, and then most likely pick up on the WWLRT north bank routing to link to Etobicoke. And we could also get an extension of the Harbourfront line that stays south of the tracks extending through the Ex.

   But our EA processes don’t encourage good thinking and options, as it seems our progressives wish to over-spend by a few hundred million to keep Joe’s friends and supporters happy.

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8. The fact that we are talking about lengthening headways at all post TC is a problem. Instead, we should adopt the subway position – TC headways shall be five minutes or less at all times that the line is in operation, regardless of ridership. After all, we don’t see the TTC worrying about the fact that late at night you could probably run 1-2 car trains and not fill them to surface ridership standards for the headways involved.

   The task for the TTC and the City shall then be to promote and maintain land use and feed route methodologies to create ridership increases on the route to bring it to at least the average revenue recovery ratio.

   Steve: I strongly agree. Please see the comment I added to Mimmo Briganti’s remarks above regarding capacities of various modes.

   The TTC needs to get away from the mentality that “there’s still room on the roof”, and revised loading standards that will actually be observed if all planned service improvements for 2008 go in will be an important start. Moving to a minimum quality of service on a trunk route, regardless of demand, is an important next step, and I may explore this in a separate post.

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9. To correct Karl Junkin’s comment, Long Branch GO station does have a parking lot. I am all in favour of eliminating Mimico and Long Branch parking, selling the land for higher-density commercial and residential development, and using the money to enhance walk-in and handicapped access to the train platforms. Long Branch does have a walk-in gate on the north side for Alderwood residents, but Mimico station does not have any access from the south — you have to walk around via Royal York to the north side. Neither station has any handicapped access.

   I agree that Park Lawn is a poor choice of loop. The two stops immediately west of Park Lawn, Legion and Superior, appear to be at least as busy as Park Lawn, and the two generic stops between Park Lawn and Humber loop.

   Abandonment of streetcar service west of Park Lawn….hmm. It would be pretty short-sighted. Lake Shore is one section where current service can be pretty quick — it’s generally limited by the number of passenger stops and by the operator’s lead foot or lack of it, rather than by other traffic. Also, Lake Shore is one of the few possible places to link a Toronto LRT network with a Mississauga network. After Dundas and Hurontario, Lakeshore seems to be at least a candidate for LRT in Mississauga. On the Toronto side, it seems unlikely for LRT to be put in along Dundas, and Bloor already has a subway.

   Although traffic around Sherway Gardens and the big-box strip on the Queensway east and west of the 427 is truly awful, I’m not sure how well any of the demand could be served by a subway stop. The station would be somewhere on Sherway Gardens property I suppose. If it was convenient to the condo towers going up on the southwest corner, it would be a long trudge to even the nearest big-box stores..

   Running LRT up Brown’s Line to Sherway is possible. There’s plenty of space for an ROW on Brown’s Line, although the grade-separated intersection of Brown’s Line and Evans Avenue would be a challenge. I don’t see any route between Queensway and Cloverdale that makes sense for LRT, unless it was to go to a subway extension.

   If you really wanted to connect the WWLRT with the subway, you could run up Kipling, although there isn’t much demand I can think of other than the schools at Birmingham and Kipling.

   Long Branch loop doesn’t have huge crushes of passengers, but there are always some people there. Two TTC bus routes, two MT bus routes, and a 24-hour streetcar, plus the nearby GO station. There’s a fair amount of transferring between TTC and MT. It’s a much more logical terminus for a new LRT than Park Lawn.

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10. @Ed: Thank you, my bad… small lot by GO Transit standards, but it is indeed there.

    When people are referring to Cloverdale, I think some people may be thinking about Cloverdale Mall – I didn’t specify, although I should have, but Cloverdale is also the neighborhood name, and that was the context I was using, the subway would actually be at the site that was Honeydale Mall, not Cloverdale Mall (opposite corner of the same intersection though).

    Contrary to what some posters have suggested, a new Cloverdale [East Mall] station would not cut off Mississauga buses sooner – MT is not moving from Kipling, that’s permanent, as is the GO Station there – this is a sub-downtown in the making (although one wonders with the amount of parking they want to add around there), thus MT has to continue to service that area, nevermind the large amount of money recently invested into the yet-to-be-built terminal – it matters in both small/short-term picture and big/long-term picture.

    However, instead of MT, the Cloverdale station would have the TTC intercept its own routes sooner, removing some of its routes from the congested congregation of MT routes along Bloor and Dundas (which is pretty heavy at peak). The TTC’s 111, 112, 191, 192, and 123 (possibly together with an extended 15 Evans, 30 Lambton, and 80 Queensway?) would be likely routes to terminate at a new Cloverdale station. That leaves only one TTC bus route on Bloor and Dundas each (if at all on Dundas), the rest remaining are all MT.

    A network perspective is where this station holds its strongest argument. Cloverdale Mall isn’t the trip generator, that wasn’t what I wanted to imply, I know it is nothing special – malls in general are poor trip generators, as they are designed around the car – and that includes the kinds of businesses that setup there often require you to drive there in order to get whatever you buy from there home with you. I agree entirely with Ed, the demand in that area is not compatible with a subway service.

    That said, this part of Dundas is not without potential. I lived in Islington Village for a while and am familiar with this stretch. On the north side, it has charm, and can develop positively and vibrantly from a subway extension. On the south side its a bit dead, it has redevelopment potential (lots of parking lots that can be converted from failed malls on the south side). This is vastly different from the potential that exists around Sherway (since Sherway’s parking is expanding even). Auto traffic is not an indication of where a subway should go (the argument works for York Uni’s case for other supporting reasons, like being a major high-demand bus hub).

    Evans is a challenge for LRT, isn’t it? That 427 merger is a complete mess. I’d say serve a stop on Brown’s Line around Coules Ct., then take the turn west onto Evans underground (with only the turn underground) to serve another stop at Gair Dr. As for between Cloverdale and Queensway, I agree that there’s not much that can be done in between for LRT service. There is a hydro corridor though, so it can run express into the subway station from the Sherway area perhaps (yes, yes… I know… but is there a practical alternative this time?). Swing through Sherway and Trillium and then just jump on the hydro corridor north of Trillium directly into the would-be Cloverdale station at the Honeydale site (LRT portal could be east of East Mall, and west of a rail spur from the Milton corridor directly south of Honeydale).

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11. Now I remember — that 3,500 number was the threshold the TTC used as eligibility criteria for converting Dufferin and Ossington (south of Bloor) to streetcar operation back in the 90s. According to the TTC, anything less than that, and streetcar operation (which includes track/overhead maintenance) costs more and provides less frequent service than buses.

    But, based on your numbers, that would result in headways < 2 minutes, and by then, you’re in subway territory … no? It would be interesting to see what ridership on the Bloor streetcar (per hour) was pre-subway. One year after the subway opened, total daily ridership was only 34,000 on the eastern leg (Yonge to Woodbine). People who knock the Sheppard subway should look at that number closely. It was even lower than Sheppard.

    Steve: The Bloor-Danforth car ran with a combined service of two-car PCC trains on a 60-second headway. That’s 120 cars/hour at, say, 75 per car on average for a capacity of 8,000. Somehow, this managed to operate in mixed traffic, although in those days, drivers knew better than to try to use Bloor Street.

    As for your claim of riding on the Danforth line, I’m looking at the charts from the integrated subway operation, and the inbound count from the Danforth subway was over 20,000 just for the morning rush hour. I think that you are citing a peak period count, not an all-day count. The chart is included in the article I wrote in March 2006 about the success of the Bloor Subway.

    Even the most optimistic projections by the TTC for the Sheppard line, including all sort of riding drained out of northern Scarborough by running it all the way to STC, didn’t come close to what the Danforth Subway carried in its early years.

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12. I double checked the numbers Steve. Your readers might find this interesting, so here are the exact turnstile counts from Thursday, June 22nd, 1967:

    Yonge-University Subway: 191,250
    Bloor-Danforth Subway (Western Leg): 59,400
    Bloor-Danforth Subway (Eastern Leg): 34,131

    These were official TTC numbers. The eastern leg of the Bloor subway in 1967 was roughly equivalent to the Sheppard Subway today in terms of length.

    Steve: Turnstile counts do not include transfer passengers from surface routes, the lifeblood of the Bloor-Danforth line and especially of the Sheppard line, nor the transfers from the Yonge-University subway. Look at the counts from the OD survey chart. The AM peak inbound count is more than half of your total for the Danforth leg, and it is reasonable to assume that the PM peak was comparable. Add in the off peak demand, and you will have a number much larger than you have cited.

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13. You’re right — it would be about 130,000 rides for the Danforth leg (Sherbourne to Woodbine). About 65,000 riders.

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14. When the TTC got rid of the Hillside Avenue wye, a couple of blocks south-west of Mimico Avenue, they got rid of a natural crossover return for the Lakeshore LRT and the replacement LRV’s. However, the length of the original wye could have been too short, which is probably why they got rid of the wye.
    I guess when the right-of-way is eventually put in on Lakeshore Blvd., they could put in a LRT crossover close to Mimico Avenue where the Royal York bus turns on its northbound return trip to the subway.

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15. Hume described Mimico and Long Branch as a throwback to the 1950s with small shops, industry, and angled parking in the commercial areas.

    Whenever I travel along Lakeshore in Mimico and Long Branch, I cant help but notice that the street is not only wide enough for a right-of-way, but wide enough to (just barely) add an extra lane.

    If the angled parking is eliminated or replaced by streetside parallel parking, and the traffic lanes are narrowed, there just might be enough room to build a 3rd track on Lakeshore.

    If that were possible, it could open up interesting opportunities for the WWLRT and express travel. Streetcars could pass each other between stops, or there could be limited-stop travel (e.g. Long Branch, Mimico, Humber).

    What are your thoughts?

    Steve: The nature of residential buildings along Lake Shore, particularly the outer end whose residents would most benefit from express operation, is that the population is spread out along the street, not concentrated at a few points. Express services only work if there are large numbers of riders who want to use only a few stops.

    It could be argued that someday the line will be fed by other bus routes and the transfer passengers would benefit from an express. To that, my reply is that we already have an express service called GO Transit. The money would be better spend adding capacity there.

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16. I would like to see the reinstatement of the 507 streetcar as I do tend to use the 501 streetcar locally along the Lakeshore. A dedicated car would improve service for the Lakeshore. Or, instead of running it merely to Humber Loop, why not extend it to Dundas West subway station which would provide a connection with the King and Queen streetcars, but also the subway and the College and Dundas streetcars. Also, like with the 508 streetcar, occasional 501 streetcars (or another number car) could connect the Lakeshore with downtown for a direct link along Queen Street – perhaps turning around at Church and heading west again.

    As for subway expansion, Sherway would be a better idea then Cloverdale. Sherway already sees some Mississauga Transit service (Route 4), which may see improved service should this expansion occur (currenlty one or two buses an hour if that.) Also, for people in southwestern Etobicoke, it would provide for a better connection to the subway rather then Kipling or Cloverdale.

    I personally would hate to see parallel parking along the Lakeshore. It seems to create more problems for driver then the current angled parking. The Lakeshore really does not need a dedicated lane or an “express track”, but merely better and more reliable TTC service.

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17. Hi Steve, I know it is too late to change LRT plan from Etobicoke to downtown, but a better idea would have been to take the line down from the Queensway south on Windemere to the Lakeshore and down the middle of Lakeshore (similar like it use to be) out to British Columbia Blvd and hook up at the east end of CNE where loop is now. Plans now would increase delays.

    Steve: Until I see the final version(s) that will come out with the Western Beaches Master Plan, I can’t comment. One option was to go down Colborne Lodge Road and then in along Lake Shore. As for a south route around the CNE, we lost that option decades ago thanks to the boneheads running Ontario Place.

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18. Why can’t a B-D extension serve both Cloverdale and Sherway? It would get buses off Dundas and service the development going on at Sherway.

    Steve: And the current estimated cost of construction is astronomical (over $400m/km). There needs to be a much more integrated review of transit in this area including the Dundas corridor into Mississauga (LRT? BRT?) and the role of GO Transit. A single extension of the Bloor subway won’t address all of the problems. Where are people coming from? Where do they want to go?

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19. “Why can’t a B-D extension serve both Cloverdale and Sherway? It would get buses off Dundas and service the development going on at Sherway.”

    There is no sensible routing that I can think of that could serve both.

    The “development” at Sherway is a couple of condo towers, and a whole lot of completely car-centric big-box in massive parking lots. Sherway is perfectly well served by a few 123 Shorncliffe buses per hour; the Evans and Queensway buses are scarce and carry almost no one, ditto for the Mississauga Transit routes.

    If “development” was the criteria for subway building, we’d have a Humber/Park Lawn/Lake Shore subway already. The amount of building going on in eastern Mimico dwarfs anything around Sherway.

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20. “There is no sensible routing that I can think of that could serve both.”

    In all fairness that’s not true. There are definitely no CHEAP options that works, and on a project whose lower cost options are still painfully expensive, but something that follows the highway like this would certainly work.

    Really though we need exactly the kind of comprehensive study Steve mentioned if we have any hope of figuring out something sensible in this area between the interface of the subway the Eglinton and Finch LRTs and the Busway(s). At the end of the day I suspect some kind of subway extension will be on the table, but we need to look closely at options for the 427 corridor between Long Branch and the Airport and I don’t think anybody would call a subway for the full length reasonable.

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21. In all fairness that’s not true. There are definitely no CHEAP options that works, and on a project whose lower cost options are still painfully expensive, but something that follows the highway like this would certainly work.

    I did consider that a reasonable cost/benefit ratio would go into determining sensibility.

    In addition, 427 in that area is elevated: it uses overpasses over Dundas, North Queen, and The Queensway. I have no idea how you can run a double-track subway line anywhere in that area without having to put it underground. The lane layout along there does not allow us any easy “grab a couple of lanes” methods. You can either tunnel (deep) under the 427, or cut-and-cover beside it, which will be messy.

    Steve: The TTC came to the same conclusion when costing a potential extension. It must go underground.

    There’s no way you can make the turn south any earlier, because you want an exit at Cloverdale, not back on Shorncliffe/Shaver, and already if one end of the station is at East Mall the other will be pretty close to Shaver already.

    There are all sorts of issues in finding a sensible station alignment at Sherway that won’t be technically very difficult. You have to get under the 427, and then deal with grade changes around Sherway. And no matter where you put the station exits, unless they are right in the mall, at best you’ll have a station access that resembles Fairview/Don Mills, while being a long, long walk for anyone who is thinking of taking the subway to do some shopping at Best Buy or Marshall’s (which is up on North Queen).

    Sorry to beat this to death, but I live in Long Branch, and I’ve been through the Sherway area by TTC, car, bicycle, and (miserably) foot. I maintain that there’s no sensible reason to extend the Bloor line to Sherway. It would be convenient for me, sure; sensible, not so much.

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