50 thoughts on “Eglinton LRT Public Meetings Announced (Update 4)”

1. Eglinton is too far south to serve as the regional express line. It needs to be further north, near the 401.

   A 3-track LRT system on Eglinton, with inbound AM express and outbound PM express might be worth looking at. That would eliminate the need to build everything to subway specs.

   Steve: But, sigh, those whose mission in life is to get to the airport in the morning would be forced to ride a local train, at least outbound from Yonge. Poor darlings.

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2. I only wrote about the track connections because you said they were impossible. That simply is not true. These technical aspects interest me and a number of your other readers greatly, as evidenced by the number of posts as such. It is all part and parcel of “The debate about the demand for and the mode of an Eglinton line, as well as how it will affect the various neighbourhoods.” Don’t forget how pissed off the locals were about the redevelopment proposals for the Eglinton Bus Terminal lands.

   Post this or not, but I didn’t feel what I had to say prior was doing any harm. If this is going to be characterized as a ill-focused debate (and terminated as such) then the facts should at least be accurate.

   I won’t comment any further on this topic.

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3. It looks as though the lrt will operate in the median through the richview lands. Will those lands be sold off for developments to avenuize that stretch of Eglinton?

   Steve: That’s a city decision separate from the transit project, and would fit into an “Avenue” study when they get around to it.

   Station spacing in the tunneled stretch seems very reasonable. (15 potential underground stations between Jane and Leslie) Display boards showed most of the tunneled stretch being bored which I would say is a really good thing for residents and businesses of the areas construction will pass through.

   Steve: This makes sense from a technical perspective because the grade varies a lot on Eglinton (examples: the hill east of Bathurst, the hill west of Bayview) and some sections would be too deep for cut-and-cover. Simpler to just bore, although the old watercourse at Bayview and Eglinton will be a challenge.

   This is the first TC route that will have 90m platforms, both inside and outside the tunnel.

   The Lawrence and Leslie buses are proposed to be routed to a 5 bay bus terminal at Don Mills, leaving that large stretch of Eglinton without buses, many people expressed concerns and I think the TTC might have to backtrack on that one, of course we have 7 years for them to change their minds before lrt service would start (optimistically).

   The Tretheway branch is to operate from a 2 bay terminal at Keele station leaving the west stretch of the tunelled section without bus service as well.

   Rerouting buses to Don Mills and Eglinton means Eglinton station will not need as large a terminal, this could change the requirements for the redevopment for a new bus terminal.

   Steve: Thanks for the update. I had a conflicting meeting to attend and could not get to the first of the public sessions about this line.

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4. Is every last millimeter of the under ground portion of the ELRT going to be smack dab directly under Eglinton unlike its full subway counterparts under Bloor and Yonge?

   Steve: I can’t comment until I see whatever drawings they have at the EA meetings, and I will attend the one in Leaside on Tuesday. It’s important to remember that the Yonge line was built as it was because back in the late 1940s, people didn’t get too upset about expropriating a swath through a residential (let alone commercial) area to build the line. Imagine trying to take million-dollar houses east of Yonge from north of Carlton to St. Clair today.

   Eglinton Avenue was once a street of low-rise housing, but now there are many high-rises and you don’t just plough through that sort of property. Also, the commercial strips in Leaside and Forest Hill are integral to those neighbourhoods and they can’t be demolished just to make way for a transit line.

   There’s some flexibility in a few spots, but for the most part that line has to be under the street because that’s the only place it can be built without acquiring very expensive property. If, as another comment here mentioned, they are planning to do most of it as a bored tunnel, the disruption at street level will be nowhere what the city endured to build the Yonge line.

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5. Joe Says:
   August 15th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
   The Calgary Ctrain does not stop for traffic lights.

   In the suburbs sure…but it can be a pretty slow trundle through downtown as it stops and starts for lights on 7th Avenue. A lot of those downtown stations were really grotty the last time I was there … I hope they’ve updated them since. And unlike Vancouver or Edmonton that can add extra cars to a trainset at rushhour, Calgary can’t go longer than a 3 car set because it’s limited by street geometrics (block width).

   I’ve walked a couple stations out of the way at rushhour to ensure I had a spot to squeeze into the C-train – good luck EB at City Hall or WB at 7th St W at rushhour.

   And another reason why trains can go faster between stops in Calgary is that they’re more spread out. For the most part stops are 1.2-1.5 km apart in a lot of the city, with stops being 3 km apart on parts of the NW line. Remember that both Calgary and Toronto proper cover the same land area…but Toronto has twice as many people in its city limits.

   While Calgary comparisons make sense in many parts of Durham, York, Peel & Halton – they are not a viable comparison for most of the City of Toronto proper.

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6. GW said …

   “This is the first TC route that will have 90m platforms, both inside and outside the tunnel … the Lawrence and Leslie buses are proposed to be routed to a 5 bay bus terminal at Don Mills”

   An LRT station with a 5-bay bus terminal? 300 foot platforms? This thing sounds like a subway in disguise.

   The whole point of LRT is that it’s supposed to be cheap. If they’re going to build the stations like this (and not like Queens Quay Stn.), what’s the point of using LRT on the central section?

   This is like filming a movie in black and white to save money, only to find out later on that color film costs the same. An LRT built to these specs will not be any cheaper than a full subway on the underground portion.

   But of course, since LRT is so fashionable these days, I guess it makes sense to call it an LRT line when really it’s a subway with overhead wires.

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7. Geoff said, “While Calgary comparisons make sense in many parts of Durham, York, Peel & Halton – they are not a viable comparison for most of the City of Toronto proper.”

   Well, yes and no. I do agree that Calgary is a better example of what can be done in the surrounding GTA areas, but I wouldn’t totally ignore it for Toronto proper.

   At the same time, there is no other system that is an exclusive example for Toronto (or the rest of the GTA). When I first set up the Toronto LRT Information page (http://lrt.daxack.ca), I did so with the thought that people really need to see what is being done to improve transit in other cities that did not involve huge investments in full metro systems. It became obvious as I wrote a “Toronto Comparison” section for each city that no one city represents a panacea for the GTA. Some things that are suitable for other cities are not so suitable here, or may be suitable only in the outlying GTA municipalities.

   Yet, at the same time, there is always one or two points about every other system that we can cherry pick from in creating new systems here.

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8. Here’s an op-ed piece from the New York Times and the future of NewYork’s transit system

   The last paragraph sums up much of what has been discussed over Transit City.

   “There has never been a more important time to improve public transit. The right question is not how we can afford a better system, but what will happen if we fail to pay for one?”

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9. This is like filming a movie in black and white to save money, only to find out later on that color film costs the same. An LRT built to these specs will not be any cheaper than a full subway on the underground portion.

   The central portion of the LRT will be expensive, no doubt, but there are still measures that can be taken to keep the system cheaper. The platforms will still be shorter than a full subway. The stations may not need to be as extensive (with mezzanines, etc) as a subway. The question of the tunnel profile is a big potential savings, and this design process should tell us whether we can build something that doesn’t preclude subway conversion 30-50 years down the line, but which still offers us a cost savings _now_.

   However, the big savings is that we _can_ come to the surface at Black Creek and past Laird, and we can have a full line operating without transfers from at least Renforth to Kennedy. We can’t build a full subway between these two points without jacking up the cost to at least three times the cost of the LRT.

   Steve: It’s worth remembering that the stations on the Sheppard Subway are also roughly 90m (300ft) long to hold 4-car subway trains. People seem to think the Eglinton Stations will be puny. The real issue will be for them to be close enough to the surface that we don’t need huge, complex mezzanines and passageways.

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10. Four-metre shallow trench LRT stations could work along Eglinton, but without a more involved investigation it’s tough to tell whether the pedestrian treatments at street level would be less disruptive given the design flexibility you would forego relative to ten-metre mezzanine-to-platform stations.

    Let’s say you want to put a shallow trench station at Eglinton x Bathurst. In the interest of keeping your LRT patrons from wandering into the middle of Eglinton Avenue to reach an island platform, you settle on side platforms with access from street corners. At ninety-metre platform lengths, you’re looking at surface access points on the corners of Bathurst and of Chiltern Hill Road. To comply with accessibility requirements, you’re looking at a staircase and a lift for each access point, for a grand total of four of each. Throw in a couple of ticket dispensers at each location, and you’ll have access points that fit comfortably into storefronts, and are rather less difficult and complex to build than a Bloor-Danforth headhouse — the main issue being that you’ll need to find four storefronts along Eglinton to make the scheme work.

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