Yonge Subway Early Closing
Effective June 22, the Yonge subway will close early north of Lawrence Station. This will allow work on tunnel liner replacement and repair to proceed at a faster pace than before and to complete while the condition of the tunnel is still acceptable for regular service operation.
This arrangement will be in place until February 14, 2009.
The following service changes are planned:
Yonge Subway
Monday to Friday, Sundays and Holidays (but not on Saturdays), service north of Lawrence will end at about 12:30 am. On Saturdays, regular service will run until the normal closing time.
The bus terminals at York Mills, Sheppard and Finch stations will remain open.
North York Centre station, as well as the York Mills south entrance, and the Poyntz and West entrances to Sheppard station, will close when Yonge train service ends.
Sheppard Subway
After about 12:23 am, to allow the Yonge line platform to be closed, all Sheppard trains will load from the north platform which can be reached directly from the bus loop and station entrance.
Replacement Bus Service
Buses on 36 Finch West, 39 Finch East, 53 Steeles East and 60 Steeles West will operate to Lawrence Station. The 97 Yonge bus, which normally goes to York Mills via Yonge Boulevard, will be extended from York Mills to Finch and will operate through Lawrence Station both ways.
The combined service on Yonge from Lawrence to Finch will be between two and three minutes.
Other Service Changes for June 22
Seasonal Subway Service Reductions
On the Yonge line, two of the four AM gap/standby trains will be removed. This has no effect on the headway. In the afternoon peak, six trains will be removed (four scheduled plus two gap trains) and the headway will widen from 2’31” to 2’46”.
On the Bloor-Danforth line, seven trains will be removed from the AM peak service widening the headway from 2’24” to 2’53”. Five trains will be removed from the PM peak service widening the headway from 2’34” to 2’57”.
On the Scarborough RT, the running time will be increase “to improve reliability in hot weather”. The round trip will change from 21 to 23 minutes and the headway from 3’40” to 3’50” during peak periods, and from 5’30” to 5’45” at off peak. Step back crewing will be dropped, and the extra time is needed for the longer terminal time this causes.
The RT will close at midnight every day to permit continued work on the power rails, and frequent bus service will run in place of the RT. This arrangement continues until August 29, 2008. The shuttle service will not operate into Lawrence East station, and all intermediate stations will close after the last RT train.
I am not going to list all of the surface route of which there are many in the usual pattern of cuts to routes serving post-secondary institutions, increases for seasonal traffic to the waterfront and CNE, and general cuts in service to adjust for lighter peak loads in the summer. The details of these will appear on the TTC website in due course.
Steve Munro 
“On the Scarborough RT, the running time will be increase “to improve reliability in hot weather”. ”
Good grief, it won’t run properly in the heat, it won’t run properly in the snow. It’s perfect for Vancouver perhaps, but I have to start wondering about the logic of upgrading and expanding it, compared to simply tunelling the subway directly to Scarborough Town Centre, and replace the rest of the service with LRT.
Steve: I took a rather catty remark of my own out of the article before publishing it. The staff cutback that eliminates drop-back crewing does add to the round trip time, and I’m surprised that the comment about the hot weather was in the TTC’s material. All the same, the RT is a delicate flower on which we have expended a small fortune for something resembling reliable service.
The Mark II cars may be an improvement, but what is really needed is an LRT line.
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I bet the Scarborough RT wouldn’t have all those problems if it were a Swan Line.
As for the Sheppard Subway using the north track for loading: rail fans will be apoplectic with delight.
Steve: I am sure that the diversion of Highland Creek to Kennedy Station can be achieved with only a small environmental impact, although given the TTC’s history of project management, they will get part way there, and then abandon the project for a few years.
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Service is being adjusted for the summer, and yet there has been sufficient crowding this year to prompt TTC to add shoulder service on Y-U-S and B-D come September. During the winter, B-D riders were being left on platforms (in the a.m. rush) — has that been resolved?
Can we be assured that there is enough summer ridership drop-off that these service changes will not result in above-standard crowding on Y-U-S, B-D and the RT after June 22?
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Steve,
“On the Bloor-Danforth line, seven trains will be removed from the AM peak service widening the headway from 2′24″ to 2′53″. Five trains will be removed from the PM peak service widening the headway from 2′34″ to 2′57″.”
(29 seconds & 23 seconds for time difference above).
I always read the “service improvements” and usually the “improvement” is less than a minute quicker, like the paragraph above has 29 & 23 seconds….how is a bus/streetcar coming 30 seconds called an improvement?
Do you have a link to the full route changes? As I rely 100% on the TTC for my transportation (why do I think I should have a DUNCE cap when I typed this sentence?)
Steve: Yes I have the full list of changes, but didn’t want to go through the tedious business of transcribing them when they’re not all that newsworthy for this site.
As for 30 seconds being a big change, you have to look at it in trains/hour and effective capacity. A change from 144 seconds to 173 seconds is a reduction from 25 to 20.8 trains/hour, or about 17%. This is not a trivial change.
On the surface, such a change (especially going the other way as an “improvement”) would be masked by the interaction between scheduled headways, actual operator depature times and traffic lights marshalling the service into multiples of their own cycle time.
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“Buses on 36 Finch West, 39 Finch East, 53 Steeles East and 60 Steeles West will operate to Lawrence Station. ”
I wonder if all of these buses will be going into the bus bay at Lawrence Station? There’s neither a lot of bus space or people space down there. And unless some of them are going to make a left turn into the station and back onto Lawrence (not such a big deal after midnight, I suppose) they’ll all be sharing one half of the loop.
Steve: Yes, they are all going in via the north entrance and will use the 162 Lawrence-Donway bus bay. Yes, this is a better headway than normally operates through this station.
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The Mark II cars may be an improvement, but what is really needed is an LRT line.
An LRT line is one thing, but it’s not the only solution.
For the cost of the ICTS renewal and the extension to Markham and Sheppard, the TTC could even extend the subway to STC. Even if it doesn’t go to the magical intersection of Markham and Sheppard, it would still benefit many people with one less transfer and a faster ride. It wouldn’t necessarily be at full capacity leaving STC, but apart from lines here and New York, what subways in North America are already used to their full potential?
At least the TTC knows how to operate subways effectively and efficiently.
Steve: As I have said many, many times, if we keep building “just one more subway”, we will never stop, and we will spend far more than is necessary while other deserving routes are left unbuilt and underserved.
An LRT line in the SRT corridor would be completely on private right-of-way and there is no reason why the TTC could not operate that “effectively and efficiently” too.
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I was thinking of what to say here. I think the best thing I can is what I just said to my roomate. I slapped my hand against my head and said “oh man, do these guys ever bother to think?”
No. No they dont.
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Steve: As I have said many, many times, if we keep building “just one more subway”, we will never stop, and we will spend far more than is necessary while other deserving routes are left unbuilt and underserved.
An LRT line in the SRT corridor would be completely on private right-of-way and there is no reason why the TTC could not operate that “effectively and efficiently” too.
I get your point (believe me, I have read your argument many times over), but it seems that you are missing the point I have raised, that the cost of the planned ICTS refurbishment and extension comes to the same price and would offer benefits as well. I think we can agree that the recommended solution is not the ideal one, though.
In the rush to build and promote LRT, I think there are a few places where the capacity of. a subway does make sense and should not be dismissed out-of-hand. Like the Downtown Relief Line, or even the Scarborough extension given the money already committed for that.
Steve: There is no money “already committed” for the SRT extension. It is one of many projects competing for attention.
I don’t dismiss subways out of hand, but they shouldn’t get a “bye” in the competitions without having to prove that they are the appropriate way to build things.
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@Sean Marshall; Assuming they did extend the BD to STC, which I don’t find realistic considering what was on the table last it was looked at a couple years ago, I suspect it would likely see a similar level of use to what Kipling does today. Kennedy’s boardings would drop substantially; probably by around a third (which would actually be to its benefit since it is easily argued too busy), I’d guestimate, in the event of a BD extension.
If one checks where a significant number of the feeders are coming from, they are coming from the STC direction or the north-east. In the case of a BD extension, many routes would be rerouted towards the new subway extension’s terminus since there is no longer a need to divert riders away from the SRT corridor with the subway replacing it. I’d guestimate STC’s daily ridership would probably be in the realm of about 40,000 boardings, a 50% increase of current levels and about on par with busy stations like Kipling and Islington on the opposite end.
The new Lawrence East would get the difference left over between Kennedy’s drop in ridership and STC’s gain in ridership.
There should also additional growth in the corridor, which needs to be accomodated, but LRT can accomodate that itself (easily).
The problem with the subway is the cost-per-km-per-rider to build this thing, since this isn’t a short extension and it would have a very wide station spacing (think St. Clair West to Eglinton West… maybe not quite that bad, but close). It’s long, its deep, and only one station between Kennedy and STC is feasable according to engineers. Poor cost-benefit, even though there are strong arguments to support the concept in an overall network point of view.
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Right wing minds hate light rail transit. It’s always subways, or nothing. Lets pay lots of money for overkill projects, while we can get more bang with our buck with standard LRT. And the right winged are supposed to be fiscally prudent … I must be the only right winger that has a brain. and actually cares about maximizing road value in moving people.
Steve: To be fair, the word “conservative” in the sense of “prudent” has been highjacked by the right wing which claims that any spending (and associated taxation) on projects (other than the ones they support) is a total waste. Both the right and the left are seduced by big projects as economic stimuli with little regard for the net benefit of the product.
This is an important problem in the Transit City and Metrolinx contexts. We are building a network, not propping up the construction industry or fighting to get the one-line-per-decade built to serve property of interest to its advocates. The political culture for transit planning in Ontario has little experience with this situation.
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Steve said …
I don’t dismiss subways out of hand …
That’s right — you usually wait about 5 seconds 😉
Name me one subway line or extension that you’d approve of.
Steve: It takes more than five seconds — I don’t check the comments here that frequently.
I would agree that a Steeles extension of the Yonge line makes eminent sense because it would eliminate all the bus traffic on Yonge north of Finch and simplify traffic operations at Finch Station. The question then becomes where the “logical” place to end the Yonge line is, but this is intimately tied up with discussion of what transit will do, if anything, for internal travel within York Region.
If York is going to be overwhelmingly car oriented and does not have any intention of developing a trunk network of frequent lines (leaving aside the BRT/LRT debate for the moment), then the rapid transit extensions are primarily intended to serve traffic bound into the 416. We need to figure out where this traffic is coming from and going to before assuming that a Richmond Hill subway is the appropriate answer.
On Sheppard, extending the tunnel east past the 404 to Consumers Road may be inevitable, but I’m waiting to see the engineering details at next week’s EA meeting. Even so, we come back to the issue (as on Eglinton) of using the tunnel for a continuous LRT line rather than extending high-platform subway operations east or west. Oddly enough, this was proposed by Richard Soberman in a January 2008 report, at a time when even I wasn’t so foolhardy as to try to get traction (pardon the pun) for this idea.
Eglinton definitely should not be a subway because this destroys interlining possibilities for service between Weston, central Etobicoke, the Airport, Mississauga and downtown. If we need heavier service in the middle “subway” part of the line, we can run extra LRT trains there.
The Bloor West extension is (a) very expensive and (b) a good example of the problem of not knowing where to stop subway expansion. A Dundas LRT into Mississauga would be quite nice, and it would help with the redevelopment of Dundas Street, a less than attractive highway strip. A subway will serve only a handful of nodes and the spaces in between will remain as barren as they are today.
I am not convinced that a Dundas West/Downtown/Danforth relief line could be justified by its ridership except for very brief periods in the peak period, although my mind is open on that score. Projected demand depends a great deal on the assumptions made about network structure, alternate travel paths, service levels and fare integration. It is fairly easy to cook any model to produce the desired result by selectively adjusting the inputs.
The single biggest flaw in the Metrolinx work to date is that they have not published demand figures for the various parts of their test cases. We have no way of knowing how traffic would flow through their test networks, or what the interim stages during a build-out might behave like.
What we do know is that the TTC’s ridership estimates for ALL of the Transit City lines don’t come anywhere near subway territory. It could be argued that if the lines were subways, they would attract more riders, but this is a chicken-and-egg situation. Subways may also attract a different set of riders, and they would definitely have a different effect on the built form of the TC corridors.
There is an excellent example at Bessarion Station which has so far been setting records for low usage on the system. It will come into its own, such as it can, once the Canadian Tire lands are developed, but this was only possible because someone put the station there in the first place. The lands from Leslie to Yonge are barren of such redevelopment because there are no mid-concession road stations. This is a fundamental constraint of subway building.
The proposed rapid transit line on the 401 (recently discussed in the Star) isn’t really a subway line in the conventional sense because it spends much of its time on the surface. In a way, it’s an LRT line on steroids, but with all the problems of a larger form for stations, tunnels, etc. For the record, I have asked the proponents of this line for technical details, and they are still figuring out how to put it online. Why they don’t just email it to me is a mystery, and this makes me suspicious of whether a fair copy of the proposal actually exists.
My position in Scarborough is clear: Kennedy is a good place for the subway to stop, and an LRT line with frequent service to begin. This line would branch once it got past the completely private right-of-way section somewhere north of the 401. Such an operation is impossible for a subway.
The TTC claims that this is a bad idea because they could not guarantee regular service from STC south to handle all of the transfer passengers. They forget that these passengers would largely already be on LRT trains from further north, and a rigid, clock-driven headway on the common part of the line would not really matter inbound. There would be much less transfer traffic and STC would cease to be a major transfer point. The extent the TTC goes to in claiming operational impossibilities when talking about LRT, but not when discussing any other modes in this corridor seriously undermines their credibility.
To their credit, they are now examining a spur south from the Sheppard LRT into STC, and this would allow the Malvern LRT to be built much sooner than the full Eglinton East/Malvern connection. Indeed, this addresses the issue that taking people from Malvern to the subway via a sightseeing tour of eastern Scarborough is counterproductive. It would be even better if the LRT could continue down the RT line all the way to Kennedy, but the forces arrayed against such an idea are considerable.
Finally, the subway to York U. I don’t like it, but if it must be built, then stop at Steeles Avenue and use this as the jumping off-point for an LRT network in York Region. I don’t care how far north the subway goes, people are going to have to transfer to use it. The subway will starve without east-west feeders even if it goes all the way to Barrie.
York U could have been the middle of an LRT network looking like a recumbent “H” with a Finch line to the south and a Highway 7 line to the north connected via a spine through the university. Instead, they demanded a subway that, initially, would benefit only riders originating from the south (and from demand projections, far moreso benefiting commuters to downtown than students and faculty travelling to York). This debate is behind us, and my railing against that particular project is a waste of effort.
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Steve wrote about the Spadina extension to Vaughan, “This debate is behind us, and my railing against that particular project is a waste of effort.”
Not so fast, Steve! It may in fact be behind us, but there is a growing force that may not make it such a waste.
After I put together my “what if LRT were built with the money” analysis (click on York Region Options), the community newspapers in York Region ran a two part article that dealt with my analysis in the first part and the second part dealt with other critics’ comments (David Gunn in particular) of the extensions into York.
This week, they ran an editorial that continues to question the logic behind spending the money on subways that will benefit so very few.
Stopping Spadina at Steeles (or Downsview, for that matter) is still a long shot, but not as far off as it was a few weeks ago.
Steve: Thanks for the update and links.
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Perhaps Metrolinx should undertake a study of the feasibility, impact, and cost of the drastically enhanced service (to 20, 15, or even 10 min headways at peak) on the GO / CN / CPR lines. The contribution from GO is the second biggest unknown in the GTA’s transit plans (the first being the total amount of funding). The level of such contribution will strongly impact the context of Downtown Relief Line, and influence the transit layout in York Region and in Mississauga.
Metrolinx has highlighted the Richmond Hill GO line already, with frequent service included in Plans B and C (most of other lines get frequent service in Plan C only). Perhaps that line can serve as a test case: Can it be double-tracked all the way to RHC? What is the service frequency limit, taking into account the presence of freight trains and the capacity of Union Stn? How many people can it carry at peak, and how fast can it run? Is it possible to straighten the route using the CN / CPR link corridors, and avoid that poetic detour around the East Don River? And, last but not least, how much would all those enhancements cost.
Steve: I concur.
The link in Don Mills between the CN and CP corridors that might have allowed a GO train from Richmond Hill access to the CPR (and through Leaside Junction to the now-inactive Don Branch) was converted to a bike path years ago. It was single track with a grade crossing on Lawrence just east of Leslie and would not be suitable for frequent service even if it still existed.
I was very amused to see this connection listed on a map of possible rail services produced not very long ago in Toronto. This shows that most planners are not railfans, but also that some planners don’t take their work seriously enough to check their “facts” and assumptions. That’s the sort of thing that bothers me in the whole Metrolinx exercise — I have seen fouled up studies before and pray that we don’t have a repetition.
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Interestingly, both Mapquest and Google Maps still show that link as a railroad.
I guess they put it on their maps in the past, and since rail lines usually stay in place forever, nobody bothered to check and update the map.
Steve: On the City’s Bike Map, it is clearly shown as a path, not a railroad. It’s in the upper left corner of map 7.
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It is funny, in a sad way, that Metrolinx places such importance on the Richmond Hill GO line over others.
This line was first studied for improvements in 1986 when there were only four one-way rush hour trains each morning and afternoon. This initial study looked into improvements, including route alignment (i.e.: using the then-available Leaside branch) as far north as Oriole. In 1991, a second study was done that extended the study area another 16 km north to Vandorf.
The intent at that time was to increase rush hour operations to 7 one-way trains, plus add full mid-day service on 90-minute headways. This large headway would allow the service to be implemented with no additional rail plant upgrades between Union and Oriole. They would be looking at a rail grade separation at Doncaster, some double-tracking, new stations (19th Avenue, Stouffville Road, and Vandorf), and a layover facility.
Jump ahead to the present, and this line still has four southbound trains in the mornings, though there are five northbound trains for the afternoon rush. They do, however, now run with 10-car consists. There is no rail grade separation on the horizon at Doncaster (though one at Snider has been serving the Bradford/Barrie line for a few years, and one is being built as we speak at Haggerman for the Stouffville line). The parking capacity at Richmond Hill has doubled as GO acquired property on the east side of Newkirk to add a second parking lot. If you take a look on the satellite view in Google maps, this lot will not look double because the image still shows an industrial building at the corner of Newkirk and Centre. This building is now gone and all of its property is part of the eastern parking lot.
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Calvin Henry-Cotnam said: “It is funny, in a sad way, that Metrolinx places such importance on the Richmond Hill GO line over others.”
I guess they are concerned about the capacity of Yonge line especially if it gets extended to RHC, and they hope to relief it using Richmond Hill REX.
Perhaps the Stouffville line, or the Brampton / Airport pair would actually make a better test case, as they provide rapid service to the north-east or north-west of 416, respectively.
However, the goal of my comment was to request a detailed study of REX on any particular line. If Metrolinx feels like studying Richmond Hill GO first, then let it be so. The results of study will give an idea of what can be expected on other lines.
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Rainforest said, “I guess they are concerned about the capacity of Yonge line…”
For sure. I was point out the “funny but sad” irony that the RH GO line was the first to be targeted as the line to improve (1986 and 1991) and again with Metrolinx, but when it came to actually make improvements, both the lines to the east and west have actually received (or are receiving) improvements while virtually nothing has happened with the Richmond Hill line.
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Calvin Henry-Cotnam said: “… the RH GO line was the first to be targeted as the line to improve (1986 and 1991) and again with Metrolinx, but when it came to actually make improvements, both the lines to the east and west have actually received (or are receiving) improvements while virtually nothing has happened with the Richmond Hill line.”
This makes one wonder if there are some technical obstacles for the enhancements on that particular line.
Let’s hope that Metrolinx selected the RH GO line for a reason, and not just because it looks cool on the map of GTA.
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Rainforest said, “Let’s hope that Metrolinx selected the RH GO line for a reason, and not just because it looks cool on the map of GTA.”
I believe that it was chosen for a good reason, both now by Metrolinx, and 15-20 years ago in the earlier plans (I have a brochure from 1992 on the expansion plans).
The real question is, why was this line back-burnered in between? I understand that cutbacks occurred in the 90’s that back-burnered everything (GO train service to Barrie, Oshawa, Guelph, etc.), but once money started to flow with the various “GO TRIP” projects, the Richmond Hill line was notably absent (check out http://www.gotransit.com/gotrip/index.asp to see that every rail line except RH is there).
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