The Downtown Relief Line has been in the news a lot lately, what with dreams of vast new revenues to pay for transit expansion and, at long last, a recognition that more people want to travel downtown than we have transit capacity to handle.
Back in the 1980s, the Network 2011 plan included a line from Union Station to Don Mills and Eglinton by way of the rail corridor, Eastern Avenue, Pape, a bridge across the Don Valley, and Don Mills Road. This scheme was turned down in favour of the Sheppard Subway as part of a misguided idea that if we simply stopped building new lines into downtown, growth would stop. In fact, GO Transit did a fine job of providing extra capacity, and more recently the new downtown condos have raised short commutes by streetcar, cycling and foot to levels nobody expected thirty years ago.
The Yonge subway filled up, for a time,but the pressure fell off thanks to the 1990s recession and the general drop in transit use. That’s no longer the case, and suddenly everyone wants to “do something” about transit capacity downtown. The TTC, shamefully, downplayed anything beyond its own mad scheme to stuff thousands more riders onto the Yonge line, a project requiring major changes in signalling, reconstruction of Bloor-Yonge station (and possibly others) for extra capacity, a much larger subway fleet (and yards to hold it) and possibly even the addition of platform doors at all stations.
Council asked the TTC to look at a DRL, and there is even supposed to be a study. However, its web page is the only sign that anything is going on.
Meanwhile, every would-be transit planner in town is busy drawing maps, to the point where a credible plan can be found simply by dropping a piece of spaghetti on a map of the city and declaring this a route. (Post-graduate degrees are available to those who can determine the ideal height from which to drop the pasta and cooking time needed to produce the best results.) What’s missing in a lot of this discussion is a view of how a DRL might fit into a wider network, not to mention a few basics about how a new rapid transit line will, or will not, fit in some of the proposed alignments.
One of the better proposals is on Phil Orr’s DRL Now site. It’s not perfect (no proposal is, including those I have floated from time to time), but at least this is a place to start with sufficient detail to understand what is going on. Drawing a swoosh across a map is easy (politicians do it all the time), but designing something that might actually work is a lot harder.
A major challenge with some versions of this line is that proponents try to do too much. Playing “connect the dots” with a transit route has its limitations, and trying to hit too many of them causes the line to wander out of its way. This ties back to a fundamental question: what is a DRL supposed to do?
If we believe some of the simpler plans (notably one in last week’s Star proposed by Councillor Pasternak), the DRL’s sole function is to get people from the Danforth subway to Union Station. This is far too simplistic and guarantees the line will not be well used except as a peak period relief valve.
Other schemes take the route south of the rail corridor to serve the Port Lands and eastern waterfront. Aside from the problems of building such a line in landfill beside Lake Ontario, the route would not provide the fine-grained transit access possible with a surface LRT, and would vastly overservice an area whose expected demand is lower than the existing Sheppard subway. Connection to Union Station from the south would also be a big challenge.
From time to time, I am asked “what would you do”, but to start that discussion, a few first principles:
- A”DRL” should not exist solely to relieve the Yonge line’s peak traffic problem, but should provide new links within the transit network giving rapid transit to areas of the city that do not have it today. Indeed, the regional function within the network may well be as important as the “relief” function at Bloor-Yonge.
- Any proposed route through downtown must respect the actual built form of the streets and buildings. Diagonal routes through built-up areas should be avoided as they are difficult if not impossible to build.
- Stations must be located where it is physically possible to build them. Some routes use rail corridors without considering how either a surface or underground station might fit or be built.
- A “DRL” is not the complete solution to capacity problems on the subway. These problems originate north of Steeles Avenue, and a major role in trimming peak demand falls to GO Transit which has several north-south routes that could drain traffic otherwise headed for the Yonge line.
The proposed route on DRL Now (click on “Interactive Map” under the “Station Information” pulldown) includes four phases:
- Don Mills and Eglinton to City Place
- City Place to Dundas West
- Don Mills from Eglinton to Sheppard
- Dundas West to Pearson Airport
I have concerns with a few details of this plan, but the basics are good. Another view of the route is available via Google Maps. This has the advantage of showing the detailed alignment rather than a “route map” graphic.
Eglinton to Railway Lands West
A route from Eglinton and Don Mills to downtown will intercept traffic that now flows via three separate bus routes (Don Mills, Thorncliffe Park and Flemingdon Park) to the Danforth subway, not to mention future traffic from the Eglinton LRT (which will have an underground station connection at Don Mills). Because the subway will not terminate at the Danforth, the volume of transfer traffic (as opposed to through rides on the new line) should be lower and the station less congested.
Some plans have aimed for different connection points on the Danforth line, although they have not necessarily considered the problems of continuing north from the connection point. These options are best viewed by zooming in on the Google Maps representation of the line.
- Donlands Station: Donlands is an alternative north-south route except for the fact that the street ends at Danforth and some neighbourhood upheaval will be required to reach the rail corridor. However, this route is closer to Greenwood Yard, and there is the general question of how a DRL might be connected into the existing subway system for maintenance purposes.
- Greenwood Station: Like Donlands, Greenwood is another alternative route, although it goes through a completely residential neighbourhood. A connection to Greenwood Yard should be possible on the east side.
- Coxwell Station: Coxwell is directly south of the line of Don Mills Road and is the easternmost point where a connection is even vaguely reasonable.
- Woodbine Station: Woodbine is well east of Don Mills Road, and a connection there more or less rules out extending the line north to Eglinton.
A related question for those who propose easterly locations for a connection is the function of a “DRL” in the Beach and whether its purpose is to somehow serve traffic from that region (which is not exactly overrun with high density development) to downtown. A westerly connection point like Pape has the advantage that the route cuts diagonally through Thorncliffe Park and across the valley and gets to downtown faster than a route further east. The Thorncliffe Park stop would not be included in any route crossing Danforth east of Greenwood because it would be out of the way for a Coxwell or Woodbine alignment.
South of Danforth, the next major segment takes the line to the Don River. Regardless of which crossing is chosen, the two options are either to go straight south to Eastern (or possibly Queen), then west into downtown, or to follow the rail corridor from (say) Pape southwest. Going under the rail corridor has its challenges, although from a jurisdictional viewpoint, the fact that Metrolinx now owns this line eliminates one possible source of opposition.
The challenge will be to tunnel under a busy rail corridor and to include stations at a few intermediate points. A surface alignment is not practical given the constraints of what is there today and planned for GO’s future expansion. Stations will be tricky unless the tunnel veers away from the rail corridor to adjacent lands. Orr’s proposal sites both the Gerrard and Queen Stations on the south-east side of the corridor where land is available.
Orr’s proposed path through the core is, for me, unattractive because it wanders in attempting to pick up many sites and ignores potential problems with building foundations.
A simpler route into downtown would be to follow Front and Wellington Streets to Peter where (at least today) there is vacant land for a diagonal crossing to Spadina and Front, the site of the proposed Metrolinx “Union Station West” for services in the Weston corridor. Connections at Yonge (to King Station) and University (to St. Andrew Station) would be fairly easy to build given the physical locations of existing stations. This route will not be a simple project, but at least it stays under one street for the distance across downtown.
Any route west of the Don River will have to deal with the built form of the West Don Lands project now under construction.
Eglinton to Sheppard
A few schemes have been proposed for a “Don Mills” line north of Eglinton including:
- The Don Mills LRT to Steeles (Transit City)
- A line running north to the CPR rail corridor just north of Eglinton and thence northeast through Agincourt
- Continuation of the “DRL” north to Sheppard (Orr’s Plan)
I have never been happy with the TTC’s proposals for a Don Mills LRT running on the surface through East York. This always had the feel of a project jammed into the available space with no regard for the effect on the community, and this approach was one of many ways the Transit City team alienated people from their plan. It was always clear that the line would require a lot of infrastructure (bridge, tunnel) south of Flemingdon/Thorncliffe and given the projected demand for a DRL, putting a subway in such infrastructure makes a lot more sense than an LRT line.
The problem arises of where the subway should end and something else should take over. Should this be at Eglinton or at Sheppard? I’m not convinced either way, and would like to see better info on travel patterns and population in the Don Mills corridor. Orr proposes stations only at the concession roads: Lawrence, York Mills and Sheppard. Like other “express” subway lines, this leaves many sites and potential riders at the mercy of local bus service, should the TTC deign to operate it. Is this the appropriate way to serve Don Mills Road, or would a surface route with more stops be better?
The Weston Rail Corridor
This corridor is a monument to the blinkered view Metrolinx has of planning for transportation within the City of Toronto. Although massive capacity expansion is underway, it is intended almost exclusively to provide room for many more trains on the Brampton/Kitchener, Milton and Airport lines.
The “Air Rail Link”, a doomed project inherited from the Federal Government and SNC Lavalin, sits in Metrolinx’ lap as a business-class express service from Pearson Airport to Union. One or two stops enroute will connect to the Bloor and (future) Eglinton rapid transit lines. The real need in this corridor is for local service — “local” not in the sense of stopping at every lamp post, but of service that addresses day-to-day demand between many points on the route as part of the regular transit system.
The rail corridor has been proposed as a “DRL West” and appears as such in Orr’s proposal. The real problem here is how we would build it given that the corridor has already been (or soon will be) reconfigured for expanded GO services.
A vital question for any proposal is “what is it supposed to do”. This will affect many aspects of route design including station location and size, fleet requirements, interoperation with other rail services, and the capacity of interchange points such as Dundas West Station on the Bloor Subway.
If we were starting from a blank slate about 30 years ago, the situation could have been very different, and the Weston corridor might have been configured with a rapid transit line on or under it. Doing this today is not as simple.
At this point, I have to declare my preference that a northwest line not automatically be an extension of the DRL subway. We have yet to see that there would actually be sufficient demand for full subway trains (there is no question of this on the eastern leg), and the use of subway technology imposes constraints on right-of-way and stations. At the very least, we should know what the alternative — an electrified frequent service on GO’s ARL trackage — would require and what it could do.
The Downtown Streetcar Lines
The DRL is cited by some as a way of solving the problem with the Queen and King streetcars. I do not agree. This is an unfortunate example of trying to make the DRL do more than it reasonably can.
Condo developments are thick on King Street, and the new buildings are moving north to Queen both west and east of downtown. These cannot be served by a single route, especially one with the wider station spacing typical of subway lines.
These are two separate networks — a rapid transit line coming into downtown, and a streetcar network serving not just Queen or King, but Dundas and College as well. The problem we have with the streetcars is that there is not enough service, and what we do have is not well-managed. Some of this is traffic congestion which, in turn, begs questions of enforcement. Spend billions on a subway, or much much less on better service and a fleet of tow trucks? That’s an oversimplification, but it’s a debate we avoid.
GO North
In every discussion of Yonge subway capacity, the potential for additional service on GO tends to be ignored even though it is part of the Metrolinx “Big Move”. GO management seems content to run a few new trains here and there, but their comments about major service increases and electrification are tempered by years of underfunding. The word “if” is more common than “when” in remarks about GO expansion.
There are big challenges, not the least of which are track and station capacities downtown. Electrification is essential for frequent service, but funding is a mystery and has not been integrated in the Metrolinx long-term plans.
GO could be handling more riders into downtown Toronto and, thereby, shaving the peak off of demand on the subway system on several existing and future routes. What is needed is the will to fund and operate these services.
Fares and subsidies will be a big issue as GO grows. More service, especially in the counterpeak and offpeak, will drag down the farebox recovery for GO.
Similarly, the fare structure’s penalties against short-haul riding discourage travellers who should be on GO but chooses instead to put up with the TTC (or drive).
What do we want? A profitable system, or one that provides service? Discussions of new funding schemes must address fare levels, not just the cost of building new infrastructure.
Conclusion
Expansion of Toronto’s rapid transit system involves more than “just one more” subway line and must be done with a view to how the network will carry riders, not just that one line.
Toronto and the regions beyond need to understand how that network might work, how the contribution of many routes will make something valuable for everyone even though they will not ride every route or visit every station.
Metrolinx and the TTC owe us a much more public, informed debate about the options and how we might spend the billions new taxes or tolls will bring.
The “Downtown Relief Line” is important, but it is only part of a much larger regional plan, and we must not try to make it solve every problem of our overburdened transit system.
Steve Munro 
Here’s an out of the box suggestion.
How about building a couple of strategically located mega parking lots around the downtown core and then closing the streets to everything except transit.
Bathurst to Bayview. Lakeshore to Bloor.
Emergency Vehicles, Transit, Bikes and some specially licensed taxis. Some commercial vehicles for deliveries.
Private automobiles kept out of the core.
Streetcars would sail along without all those other cars in the way.
Steve: Now all we need is someone with a lot of space they want to devote to parking. Sadly for your idea, condos are more profitable.
LikeLike
The best alignment in my view would be to utilize Don Mills, Coxwell, Queen East, Sherbourne, Front, John, Queen West, Parkside/Keele to St Clair then merge into the West Galt rail corridor to Eglinton.
This would effectively resolve:
– the issue of trying to fit in a subway in the bottleneck at Bloor GO/Dundas West because at Keele/Bloor there is no subway tunnel underneath to have navigate around, making for a shallow station box accessible to the existing station via elevator.
– no need for intermediates between Bloor and Queen on the western leg (although a Howard Park Stn could be roughed in).
– possibility of a Roncesvalles GO connection, resurrection of the 507 to Long Branch
– west of Bathurst, Queen is the major east-west artery and the Liberty Village area is already in proximity of GO transit.
– east of Spadina the high densities warrant a U-shaped diversion which would result in stations proximal to the Rogers Ctr, Union Stn (perhaps directly underneath the existing station a la St George) and St Lawrence Market.
– the use of Sherbourne as the eastern U is deliberate to have a station near George Brown College.
– the 501 and 503 cars could become merged as a single route serving both the Beaches and Upper Beaches from a Coxwell/Queen terminus. This would effective;ly result in Bloor-Danfroth like subway spacing through Riverdale/Leslieville.
-The 506 could also be short-turned at Coxwell/Queen with the 135 possibly serving all of Upper Gerrard and routing into Coxwell (Danforth) Stn; effectively replacing the 22 bus.
– I don’t know how challenging tunneling up Coxwell would be considering the sewer main, but the corridor is roughly at the mid-way point between Kennedy Stn and Bloor-Yonge, making it a more convenient transfer point for inbound transit users than Pape.
– And as you Steve mentioned Coxwell aligns perfectly with Don Mills Road, so a seamless bridge crossing over the Don is feasible. And a single station at Overlea/Don Mills could serve all the Thorncliffe-Flemingdon community via a rerouted 81-100 bus route.
Thoughts?
Steve: The turns onto and off of Sherbourne would be a challenge especially considering that there is a brand new condo about to go on the northwest corner at Front. At John, the CBC building is in the way. The dipsy doodle through downtown is a good example of the “spaghetti planning” I alluded to. It is not feasible to build a line like that. As for Front Street, there is no room left for another line in front of Union Station.
Don’t hold your breath for the resurrection of Sunnyside Station.
LikeLike
If the goal is to just provide relief at Yonge/Bloor, why do we need to bury this thing all the way under downtown and over to Spadina? Wouldn’t it work if we just stopped it at Yonge, or even Jarvis? The reality is that if you want to get to Spadina, you’re going to go over to Spadina station and then south anyways (ie. not causing problems at Yonge/Bloor)…people could walk underground from a station at Jarvis and Queen it would be about as far from Union to the financial district…plus there is either the Queen or King streetcar if you really need to get further…the most expensive part of this line is going to be tunneling under downtown, so why do it unless it’s absolutely necessary – if it was ever determined that a west end relief line was needed then build it to Spadina and Queen and stop…then if it really becomes necessary to provide even more relief at a later date, build the bit under downtown…
Steve: Your premise is wrong and so your analysis fails. The intent is not just to relieve Bloor-Yonge, but to provide additional north-south capacity parallel to the Yonge corridor. This has many benefits beyond the immediate vicinity of Bloor-Yonge.
LikeLike
Profit?! Since when did public transit = Profit?!
I’m only suggesting this as a cheap alternative to digging Subways.
City owned and operated Parking garages near Don Valley and the Gardiner and at Bathurst and Gardiner to catch the highway traffic from the east and west.
There will also need to be parking facilities in the north east and north west corners of the no car zones.
LikeLike
Great piece Steve!
I’m certainly guilty myself of dreaming of ways this line can do even more super great things that it is already planned to do. However, I feel the DRL Now routing/stations, like yourself, makes pretty-much complete sense from Don Mills to the core. It then gets a little more problematic, probably as there are more significant “destinations” in the West that everyone wants the DRL to service.
I’m amused that none of the comments (or Steve’s opinion) was that Queen should be the preferred routing as it tends to be the route Metrolinx puts in their maps.
MIROSLAV: Thanks for the mention! Appreciated.
EVERYONE: If you aren’t a member yet, please join the DRL Facebook group here.
LikeLike
Steve said …
That’s what University was for, before the TTC “bastardized” its original purpose. I just don’t see how a DRL “double tracks” Yonge, unless it somehow morphs into a Bay St. (or Church St.) stub line, with mirror stations at Wellesley, College, Dundas, Queen, King, and Union.
Danforthers have always scoffed at using the University line and walking east, or riding around Union, even when interlining was in effect. And St. George? … switching trains there is heresy if you’re an east-ender. The question is can you convince *enough* Danforthers to make two transfers (one at Pape and another one at Queen/Union) instead of one at BY? I’m not so sure.
With the Eglinton LRT reverting back to its original format, we’re not going to redistribute any subway ridership away from Danforth, and there is absolutely no chance the DRL will go to Eglinton in its first phase either (ie. to take riders off Danforth in the same manner that the Spadina subway took riders off Bloor when it opened in ’78).
The bottom line is the current layout is, and always has been, flawed and suboptimal for east-enders.
LikeLike
If you are going to putting a new underground line down then you need to allow a few decades growth potential. But if you don’t need 32,000 passengers an hour, just build smaller stations and trains, it will save you some cash. It just seems Toronto is getting bigger and bigger and leaving your lines at just the projections leaves you open to being caught short 10 years after you opened it.
I know people have been scarred the monumental cock up of Shepherd, but the problem with that line it does not really go anywhere people want to go.
If you open capacity in restricted areas I bet it will fill faster than anyone expects. All the new capacity in London is filling up in just a few years. Projections for 2018 are being met today, and this in a middle of a recession.
The inner suburbs of Toronto must be full suppressed travel demand.
Never the less, I recognise that Toronto and more importantly it’s state government aren’t quite at the stage of putting down the required amount of money. So you want to keep the line costs down and keep within the art of the possible. You are not quite ready for Crossrail yet.
Any way, here was my idea. The Eastern half is the most important and generally everyone agrees it should roughly follow Don Mills then westerly under either Kings Queens sort of area. A stage one could just end at the University line, or it could just terminate at the proposed Bathurst yard station for GO.
After that it seems a waste of potential not to have the line head Northwards again. I’m not wedded to any particular avenue. Also if demand is not so heavy on the West from outer suburban commuter two spurs could increase it’s coverage.
Anyway if the line heads Northwards it should get to Bloor and hopefully St Clair.
I think a good termination point would be Eglinton West as it meets the Spadina line and the Eglinton line in one spot and provides good interchange.
LikeLike
L. Wall says:
May 1, 2012 at 12:27 pm
Do you actually think Canada will ever get around to HSR? Better use it for something useful than to wait for the Feds to get around to HSR.. Expanding GO trains to Kingston and Ottawa would be more useful than waiting for HSR.
LikeLike
Michael Forest says:
May 1, 2012 at 12:57 pm
Remember that this proposal is to get people thinking about better use of the rail corridors. The reasons for not using subway equipment is 4 fold.
1) It needs a higher seated to standing ratio for rides that may be up to 30 km long.
2) The current subway stock is not capable of high enough speeds or acceleration. You want cars that will fly at 80+ mph and accelerate quickly.
3) While the line will be segregated it would be possible to run other equipment on the same track as long as it is not main line freight. This would be standard gauge, 4′ 8 1/2″. You need to keep your options open. Running subway cars limits your options too much. It is time to abandon TTC gauge for some things.
4) The proposed ARL line could still be built. This would be an add on after everyone realized how useless the ARL is. It may actually be very successful, and pigs may fly.
LikeLike
Richard said:
Frankly, I don’t see how this statement can be a “pitch” for the vast majority of voters (save for the very few transit planning enthusiasts). If I lived in Scarborough, and was told that fast transit is “not appropriate” for my area, so I am getting minor improvements (or nothing at all) and will still have to spend 1.5 hours each way on my weekday commute – well, why would I bother voting for a politician who supports that line of reasoning?
In contrast, the notion that DRL can shave some time off the suburb-to-downtown trips, as well as make such trips more comfortable, offers something tangible to the suburbanites.
LikeLike
I am not sure I’d support a subway line along Queen or King Street. Could we not get a lot more out of that route if we put the King and Queen cars underground in the downtown core?
As for the DRL why not run it south of the rail yards into the waterfront area. That area could be a cheaper option and as the area continues to develop we could build up the ridership would improve If the above plan is used it would allow the King and Queen cars feed into the line which I would imagine would reduce the pressure on the Younge Subway.
LikeLike
If I understand correctly, the reason for the urgency behind the DRL is that Bloor-Yonge station is reaching capacity, and that the time required to unload/load the subways will increase to the point of causing congestion on the Yonge Line. Since the University line already acts in part as a relief for riders coming from the west, we need to construct the DRL as a by-pass for riders from the east.
We could connect to the BD line at Parliament or Sherbourne, but this would create a short stub line that would have no future expansion possibilities to the north. So the DRL has to continue eastwards, cross the Don River, and then turn northwards. A BD connection between Pape and Coxwell is most often mentioned, as it would allow for easy future expansion to the north to connect with the Eglinton LRT.
In order to attract riders, the DRL should be a faster trip than transferring at Bloor-Yonge, but should have a few stations for local riders. Do I have the basic problem outlined, or are there other important details?
Steve: That’s the nub of it as far as the “relief” function is concerned. The other main part is that a north-south route heading up at least to Don Mills and Eglinton will do a nice job of filling in the grid of rapid transit lines, especially with the Eglinton line.
Do we currently have good trip data for people who get on the Danforth subway and get off downtown? Do we know where most riders get on and off? For example, if most of the riders going Danforth-Downtown are Ryerson students, then it would make sense to put the line through the downtown further north than if most of the riders worked in the financial district. Also, if the DRL meets the BD line too far to the east, then many riders might be missed.
If this info is not available, can it be obtained easily? Would it make sense to wait until a full roll-out of the Presto cards, assuming that the system would record this info (i.e. card #123456 was used by a rider to enter the system at Woodbine station and to exit at King station).
Steve: The data exists at a coarse level — neighbourhoods, not stations. It does not matter where you come through downtown, there will be people who are not directly served. Moving the line further north takes it out of the corridor that is most densely developed (Queen south to Front).
LikeLike
I’m with those who say a DRL should go under King with Bloor-like stop spacing, which would give the added benefit of entirely replacing the King streetcar. I also agree it should not connect to Union.
Now for the hard part — determining if we can start this any time soon. We just had $8 billion from Queen’s Park, and nothing was proposed or allocated for a DRL by Miller or Ford. If Yonge is bursting at the seems now, the Eglinton and Sheppard LRTs will only exacerbate rather than alleviate this problem. And no one knows when (or even if) Toronto will get another opportunity to spend billions on transit carte blanche.
Which leads to the idea of tolls and other fees to fund a DRL. Stintz and co. getting the LRTs approved was easy by comparison because 1) Ford is a terrible politician of epic proportions; and 2) the idea of approving previously studied and approved projects while also avoiding most/all cancellation fees appealed greatly to many councilors. By contrast the DRL has a blank slate, and it’s anyone’s guess whether Council would support tolls.
There is also the elephant in the room known as the Yonge extension. The E.A. has been done, York Region wants it, and the Federal and Provincial governments both want to fund it. If final approval were to come through in the next few years, and Toronto couldn’t arrange funding for a DRL, would the City react by trying to kill a funded and popular subway extension? If Yonge goes ahead with no DRL on the horizon, we’ll be in huge trouble.
Steve: Council is already on record as making the DRL a pre-requisite for the Yonge extension. One big problem here is that the TTC has been dragging its feet on supporting this line until quite recently, and it is possible that their unpublished study does not go into anywhere near as many options as the discussions here and on other blogs cover. We may lose time in the debate for lack of expert info about possible alignments.
LikeLike
A line from Eglinton/Don Mills down to Yonge/Queen/King provides more north south capacity, but it would probably be half as expensive as doing that and tunneling under the path and the core of the city over to Spadina … is there really that much demand from Scarborough to Spadina/Bathurst? Are the Spadina or Bathurst streetcars overloaded? I just don’t understand how spending a few extra billion dollars to go a few streets further can be justified, especially given the other options that people have…I’d be interested to see what the expected demand would be for some of these options, and the amount of money it would cost to build each section…
Steve: The reason for going to Spadina/Bathurst has nothing to do with those streetcar lines and everything to do with Metrolinx proposed satellite Union Station in Bathurst North Yard.
The way I see it is that one of the concerns people have about Transit City is that since it is mostly east-west the main challenge for people will be going north/south (since the only real north/south routes besides buses and go is the subway system) … a subway that roughly divides the Eglinton line in the east would make getting downtown on TTC a lot easier for people at the east end of the Eglinton line … likewise on the west end for St. Clair and Eglinton … but I can’t imagine taking the east end of that line further west (and then back north) than the city core, and likewise the west end further east (and then north) than the city core … I would just get off at the Bloor subway and go as far east or west as I wanted … again as you’ve said building direct routes for everyone is impossible.
LikeLike
A couple of considerations that don’t seem to have been dealt with in the comments yet:
1) Wouldn’t it make sense to decouple the YUS line, so that the Spadina/University branch becomes a DLR east of Union, and the Yonge branch becomes a DLR heading westwards? Effectively, you would have two side-by-side U-shaped lines, intersecting at a double-stacked station at Union. The advantage to this arrangement is to give a one-seat ride to many more people. Commuters arriving at the proposed Bathurst Yard terminus would only need to transfer once to reach most downtown destinations via the Yonge branch. And while this arrangement would not serve to relieve Bloor-Yonge station for destinations to the east of Yonge Street, it would be convenient for pretty much everything lying between Yonge and University, giving those transferring at Pape (or wherever) a one-seat ride to most downtown destinations around King and Queen streets via St Andrew and Osgoode stations.
Steve: This proposal would involve a complete restructuring of Union Station and the two existing subway lines that, aside from the complexity and its conflict with work now underway, would probably be impossible without a complete shutdown of both lines. Double-decking Union Station would require regrading of the University line (assuming that it would wind up on the bottom level) from St. Andrew Station southwards. The lines could not be completely decoupled because a track link from the now-isolated Yonge line to University would be essential for access to Wilson and Greenwood yards.
2) Would it be feasible to convert the existing Sheppard subway to LRT, or do the existing tunnel dimensions prohibit that? Although it sounds regressive, this would allow a one-seat ride from Scarborough to the Yonge line. It would also allow a ‘northern relief line’ to be constructed as LRT, which would be more cost-effective than subway. And ultimately, it could be connected to the Finch LRT to create a northern crosstown route.
Steve: This has been discussed at some length in another thread, and the answer is “yes, but”. The “but” relates to the complexity, need to reconfigure stations for low-platform cars, and the whole debate over whether elimination of a transfer at Don Mills is worth the cost of the conversion. I wish that a proper study of this could be conducted if only to settle the technical and cost issues. Then we could either put it in the hopper for future consideration and funding, or simply say “no, it won’t happen”.
3) If the DLR extends up Don Mills as far as Sheppard, would it not make more sense to then combine the two lines rather than have a transfer between them. If rapid transit to stations further north from Don Mills station was desirable, would the capacity not be adequately served by turning the Sheppard East LRT northwards. (i.e. you’d have two L-shaped lines – one subway, one LRT – that ‘kissed’ at Don Mills station). Obviously it would make a great deal of sense to plan this in now, before the construction of the currently envisioned subway-LRT transfer structure begins. This would hopefully provide greater utility for the existing Sheppard ‘stubway’ and would provide an alternative to transferring at Yonge-Eglinton to reach the science centre, for example. If the northern Yonge extension goes ahead, this would also mean that commuters from Sheppard-Yonge station might opt for this longer ride to downtown if it means they are guaranteed a seat, giving even more relief to the Yonge line.
Steve: Don Mills Station is not located suitably to permit the line to turn north. This isn’t just a case of flipping on a left turn signal and then routing the train up to Finch or Steeles. I am not yet certain about the appropriate location for a change from subway to LRT technology on Don Mills — whether it should be at Eglinton or further north — and would like to see detailed development and ridership projections for this segment of the route.
4) Especially if the YUS line is decoupled, it’s about time Toronto changed the naming of its subway lines – I’m not sure where else in the world squeezes in the names of all the main roads it runs under. Either more abstractly geographic (such as London’s Piccadilly line – its route under Piccadilly is perhaps 5% of its total length, if that), abstract (Millennium Line), numeric, or, as seems most typical for systems the size of Toronto’s, by colour. Also worth consideration is whether LRT lines will be represented differently on maps or not.
5) Totally agree that more needs to be done with making the GO network an all-day, two-way S-Bahn/RER type of system with high platforms, EMUs, etc. For the commenters who complained about the DLR not alleviating commutes of up to 2 hours from Scarborough, that is certainly the way to go.
LikeLike
Further to point 3 in my previous comment – Don Mills would be ideally a braided transfer, so people who want to continue in the same compass direction would have a simple cross-platform transfer (e.g. those who are taking the subway from downtown and transferring to northbound LRT going to Steeles East). It would be similar to Lionel-Groulx station on the Montreal Metro.
Steve: I don’t think that the station you propose is physically possible. Lionel-Groulx had the advantage of being built from scratch to that design.
LikeLike
East-West routing through the core is a no-brainer in my view – Richmond or Adelaide. The city would manage easily if either of those streets was totally closed for 5 years for cut and cover; this isn’t the case if you build under Queen or King, which would devastate the city’s most important commercial strips and take the core streetcar lines out of commission for years. Richmond and Adelaide also have few businesses on them and few skyscrapers with foundations to worry about (especially Richmond).
Orr’s financial district station under Wellington is an awesome project in theory but i don’t know how that would ever work with the PATH and foundations of 8 massive skyscrapers. Station would have to be at stygian depths. As an ex Bay Street guy, taking a DRL to a Richmond and Bay station and walking a few blocks or through the PATH in the winter would work just fine.
IMHO west side of downtown is so heavily developed that it could keep supporting both streetcar lines and a widely stop spaced DRL.
LikeLike
I really admired this Keele Belt Line proposal at SkyscraperCity by TRZ. It was innovative in so many ways.
1. Interline the DRL with B-D. A tight fit at Dundas West, not sure of radii near Greenwood, difficulties operationally. However, would be very popular with Scarborough and Etobicoke and if we can’t interline a segregated subway line there is no hope of interlining an LRT at street level.
Steve: Actually the problems of interlining are related much more to physical constraints on connecting structures and minimum headways on parts of the route where individual services overlap. This is not an issue for LRT lines which have much less severe constraints on connection geometry and headways that are wide enough that interlining is not an issue.
2. Avoid King/Queen to maintain transit during construction.
3. Serve both King/Queen Streets. Subway runs between these two main streets, but serves both. Also helps disperse subway interchange traffic to more stations.
4. Shallow construction. With TBM, stations are cut-and-cover anyway, so where stations are close together, cut-and-cover the whole way does not cause additional disruption. Make it shallow and the disruption time is much shorter. Ventilation is less onerous when shallower.
Steve: An important point many people miss when talking about “just shifting those boring machines to a new line” is that this commits us to expensive deep tunnels and associated stations. If we don’t want to put up with cut-and-cover construction, then we have to accept that tunnels will be more expensive, and station construction more intrusive because of the depth and length of time needed to finish the work.
5. No mezzanine level (or mezzanine level between platforms and not above). This results from the shallow construction. Pedestrian access is easier when shallower.
6. Narrow construction – Richmond and Adelaide both one way subways. Although double the construction zones, each trench is narrower allowing better use of road during construction. Both-side loading of subway cars also possible.
A lot hinges on Metrolinx and their proposed URL (Union Relief Line). It seems to me that Bathurst yard is a short term fix for GO since it does not allow trains to run through from west to east. With electrification and more frequent service, I would suspect that a buried “Union East” or an underground segment from Bathurst yard-Wellington-Donlands would be a better long term solution.
LikeLike
I predict that if a DRL is built, it will connect only to Danforth. Meanwhile with the Eglinton LRT the Yonge’s line chokepoint will be moved to midtown. Hence we are all back to square one.
One alternative routing which never gets much of a look at through downtown is Dundas. While some drawbacks include being located north of the Financial District and the direct core of the city, an advantage it offers is a potentially smooth connection to Dundas West and Bloor GO stations in the west end.
If something further south is chosen, branching should be considered as a means to not only connect to the Bloor line, but connect neighbourhoods along Lake Ontario in Toronto. Depending on the final alignment, this could also eliminate the Queen streetcar route, or at least shorten it to allow it to better focus on its local tasks.
Finally… I already know you and others will disagree with this venomously, but monorail – or at least elevated rail – should also at least be considered. The cost savings decreased construction complexity might make this project more manageable when compared to going underground, and the former has a much smaller visual footprint than the latter. Of course, if some sort of elevated option is chosen, aesthetics would be paramount to minimize obstructiveness as well as blend in with the urban environment.
Steve: Elevateds look and work fine when they are not built down busy, narrow streets and can be designed to merge into nearby structures. Vancouver shows some examples of this. However, a new line through downtown is not going to have this charmed environment, especially at station locations where the structure would cover the street from sidewalk to sidewalk. There is no way to make a silk purse out of that. Imagine Dundas Square disappearing under an elevated station, its platforms and associated stairways, escalators, etc. I know this might hide the billboards from view (possibly a good thing), but blighting the street is not likely to win many friends.
LikeLike
Metrolinx did some review of this (mostly from a cash and benefits point of view); obviously (from reading it) the technical issues are left mostly unexplored, though.
Steve: That is a review of options for the Sheppard/Finch corridor, not for the DRL or for any form of rapid transit north from the Danforth subway via Don Mills. My “wish” relates to alignments for the DRL, not for Sheppard/Finch.
Incidentally, City Council also authorized the City Manager to look in to an EA for Sheppard West in their March 21–22 meeting; it’d be interesting if that could be extended to look into LRT and LRT conversion.
LikeLike
I hate to sound like a suburbanite who thinks that everyone who lives downtown is an elitist (not that I think that), but if we ever hope for this idea to gain support among this group of “anti-downtown elite” suburbanists can we please “change” the name of the proposed line to the “Commuter Relief Line” instead of the DRL?
Steve: I personally prefer “Don Mills”, but this runs headlong into those who wish to extend the line at least to Weston if not further. Even so, calling the east side the “Don Mills Subway” would certainly be both accurate and “Suburban”. Once we build a western branch, we can tack that name on just as “University” and “Spadina” were added to Yonge.
LikeLike
I know that’s not your thinking Steve but I seriously worry about this sort of an idea.
The DRL is not a scotch infused soother to make Metrolinx feel better about trying to force everybody West of Etobicoke onto a diesel rail car.
LikeLike
John W says:
I agree that GO transit needs to play a greater role in transporting people within Toronto. There are a few things that need to happen before GO becomes a viable option for more Scarborough commuters.
1) Sort out the fare system. York Region commuters pay their GO fare and then pay 5o cents when they transfer to YRT/VIVA. Scarborough commuters currently have to pay a GO fare and TTC fare.
2) Expand service time. Currently, GO trains only stop at the Scarborough stations during rush hour. If you have to work overtime or don’t work 9 to 5 you have to take the TTC or drive. GO isn’t an option.
3) A new line is needed. The G line roughly runs up Kennedy Rd. in Scarborough. People living further east do not have reliable rail service with GO. The B line runs east in the extreme south end of Scarborough. People living in north Scarborough don’t have access to reliable rail service with GO. Also, the GO-TTC connections in this part of Scarborough are problematic. As a result of all these problems, a new line is needed that runs up to the Malvern area. There are rail lines that run up north around the Markham Rd. or Morningside Ave. areas. GO will need to initiate new service there for it to be an option for Scarborough commuters.
4) Why not take the GO bus? GO buses tend to stop at hubs such as Scarborough Town Centre or UTSC. You have to travel from GO hub to GO hub. If you’re not close to a GO hub it’s a long commute to get to one, which doesn’t really make GO transit an option.
5) Cost. Scarborough is a moderate to low income area generally speaking. Can residents to afford to pay higher GO fares ($5+)? GO is fare-by-distance after-all.
These problems aren’t insurmountable. Once they are solved, GO transit will become an option for Scarborough commuters.
Steve: It is particularly galling that Port Credit is closer to Union Station than a lot of Scarborough, but GO treats Scarborough as foreign territory as it’s within the City of Toronto boundary.
LikeLike
Michael Forest says:
That’s my point exactly. Scarborough residents will not support politicians with that line of reasoning They were just told they’re not getting a subway because it’s not appropriate for Scarborough. The arguments used to justify the decision (e.g., low peak point ridership and medium population density) completely ignored the 1.5 to 2 hour travel times. However, one councilor is trying to get support for and many commentators are supporting a westward extension of the Sheppard subway further into North York. This leaves Scarborough residents feeling shafted.
My point is if we’re really trying to build a transit network then we can’t tell one part of town that, “No you don’t get a subway because your part of town doesn’t meet the requirements to justify building a subway” and then turn around and say, “Hey we should try to build a subway in another part of town that also doesn’t meet the requirements to justify building a subway.” The optics are very bad and it makes people in Scarborough think that they were denied a subway so other parts of the city can get a subway at their expense. That will make many people very angry.
LikeLike
Off topic. I was in Bay station early one day this week and there was a small army of what looked to be interns being trained on how to clean windows. Maybe 20 or so youthful looking ttc employees learning how to use a squeegee. Right in the middle of rush hour. Definitely think this is a good way of doing training out in public in a mass. It was quite when there are 20 employees in the station in vests that there is some serious cleaning going to happen. Roving mobs of cleaners. Love it.
LikeLike
Dufferin Street would be the natural western alignment for DRL. It’s one of the busiest bus routes after all.
LikeLike
At a minimum the DRL has to have a connection at Eglington and Don Mills. On the West side, if the DRL could be extended all the way to the airport would it even be necessary for the Eglington LRT to also go to the airport? Those traveling along the LRT could transfer to the DRL to complete the trip to the airport. Such an option maybe allows the LRT to link up with Mississauga transit instead.
LikeLike
I will refrain from some efFrontery of a transitway suggestion – and instead suggest that our time frames for doing things here in Caronto are sooo extended that we needn’t be too perturbed about sudden action in the face of climate change, congestion, peak oil and economic hardship from burning umpteen millions of money each day etc. I saw a reference to doing an Eglinton subway c. 1966, and now, we’re getting to doing an LRT, no thanks to Mr. Harris and his illk for filling in a good start.
If there was a serious interest in provision of a good route, we’d have a development freeze in the core from High Park to the Don in the general corridor from the Queen St. alignment once suggested for transit to a bit south of the railway corridor. While a freeze on all projects would prompt more than a few howls and suits, there’s been a Huge Goosing of demand and travel pressure from all the new condos etc., but nary a real response from the City, except to get the tax revenue.
The new streetcars won’t help as they will come less frequently.
The transit shortfalls are echoed by the abysmal failures of the progressives to do a single real thing for safe bike travel south of Dundas despite massive travel demand and massive/serious injuries. Perhaps bikes would be too competitive to the trans*it so what incentive is there to provide bike safety?
LikeLike
One point: Coxwell has a massive sewer trunk running its entire length leading to Ashbridge’s. It’s not the sort of thing that can easily be switched off while it’s relocated.
LikeLike
Walter said, “Both-side loading of subway cars also possible.”
For safety reasons, it is common practice to place the third rail on the opposite side of the track from any platform where passengers wait.
The way around this is to have the side with the third rail used for unloading (where people tend to not hang around after leaving the train) and the opposite side for loading. To see this in action, check out the Kennedy platform on the SRT, and to see this in place but not in action, check out the Sheppard/Yonge platform on the Sheppard line.
LikeLike
Steve wrote, “…but blighting the street is not likely to win many friends.”
Despite being of the opinion that elevated lines over roads blight the street, and at the risk of offending someone out there, both Adelaide and Richmond Streets through the core are somewhat “blighty” already (that probably was not a word, but it is now!). I have heard it said that making them one-way did that, so I’m wondering how much worse those streets would be if the DRL through the core were elevated on either (or one-way on each) street. Of course, getting from an underground or at-grade alignment to the elevated core alignment, and where it occurs east and west of the core, is a whole other can of worms.
Steve: Richmond and Adelaide through the core is only a short section and you quickly get into areas that are filling up with new condos and recycling old industrial buildings. I don’t think potential developers will thanks you for an elevated on their street. It’s not a just a question of fitting in with the buildings, but the effect on the pedestrian realm at street level.
One issue advocates of the one way pair have yet to address is how the two directions would rejoin outside of the core, if only to provide a western terminus.
LikeLike
My “wish” relates to alignments for the DRL
Ok, but what I quoted was in response to
Would it be feasible to convert the existing Sheppard subway to LRT
Perhaps I misunderstood, though.
LikeLike
Steve, your rejection of decoupling or breaking the YUS line at Union seems to be based on the assumption that you have to build a complex multi-level station like St. George at the existing Union TTC station.
However, there’s another option. If you build the new station as a cross like Bloor-Danforth, and continue the University line south down York, and the Yonge line west along Front, you should be able to instead have a simpler construction, that wouldn’t require simultaneous closure of both legs, but do it one at a time.
It would still be a massive engineering exercise, but perhaps more feasible.
Still, I don’t see this as the DRL answer though. But perhaps a future post-DRL project to relieve the DRL in a half-century or so.
🙂 (given the University line was the original DRL, that would make the “new” DRL a DRRL, and a future post-DRL project a DRRRL ) 🙂
Steve: Taking the University line down York Street would be a big challenge because you have to get under the foundations of the railway viaduct. They go down a long way. Also I don’t know how you would build this new connection while maintaining through service on the two lines. As for taking Yonge to the west, yes, if the University line were not in the way, that would work fine. However, you have still not addressed the problem of getting more capacity into the core than the current two lines.
LikeLike
With regard to elevated subway structures…
I was just in NYC, and stayed at a hotel in Queens next to the N Q line. I walked along 31st St in Queens many times, and I agree with Steve – the elevated structure is definitely a blight on the street. It’s loud, invasive, and though not nearly as unattractive as the Gardiner here in Toronto, it does detract from the street. This point really gets driven home as soon as you get to Ditmars Blvd walking northbound on 31st (where that particular line ends). The street transforms into a beautiful strip much like the Danforth through Greektown, and after a few blocks, you simply can’t imagine them extending the elevated subway through that stretch. It would kill the street.
Having said that, my wife and I used the subway extensively throughout our stay, as we travelled from Queens to Manhattan daily, as well as Brooklyn and The Bronx on a few occasions. Most lines outside of downtown/midtown Manhattan were elevated, and despite the obvious drawbacks to the streets below and the pedestrian realm, we couldn’t help but envy the fact that so much of their city has subway coverage. So much so that I’d be willing to put up with elevated structures on some routes here, if it meant we could actually build a line like the DRL.
One important distinction to note is that we wouldn’t build a steel structure here, like the ones in NYC. Those are horribly, deafeningly loud at street level, whereas here we would likely build a concrete structure like the elevated portion of the SRT, which I’m assuming would be much quieter. Further, if we split the route as suggested by a few posters above on streets like Richmond and Adelaide, it would not be such an imposing structure like what they have in NYC. Yes, we’d have to figure out how to rejoin the two lines west of the core, but I think it’s worth investigating. The less expensive it is to build, the more likely the DRL will actually get built.
LikeLike
Having seen what the Skytrain Canada Line extension into Richmond did to an already-ugly section of No. 3 Rd (think strip malls), I can only imagine how an elevated train would wreck a downtown street. It’s really not a good idea at all.
LikeLike
@Richard, I really wish people would stop confusing the mode with the method. LRT can be just as fast as a subway, if not faster when executed properly. Stop spacing and priorities play a much larger part in determining how fast rail operates, not how many articulations the trains have.
Is there an argument for faster light rail in Scarborough? Absolutely. But debating between light rail and subways is like debating between a bike and a car for an environment which is better suited for a bicycle. The debate should be between whether we should get a fast Trek bike, or if a cheap Walmart bike would be sufficient to meet the needs of the area.
LikeLike
A very long Downtown Relief Line in grey.
LikeLike
Steve: Taking the University line down York Street would be a big challenge because you have to get under the foundations of the railway viaduct. They go down a long way. Also I don’t know how you would build this new connection while maintaining through service on the two lines. Oh, you couldn’t maintain two lines. But you could, for example, maintain Yonge service to Eglinton, and University to Osgoode. You’d probably have to drop the University line under the elevation of the Yonge line … perhaps forcing you to dig out St. Andrew station and lower it’s elevation.
However, you have still not addressed the problem of getting more capacity into the core than the current two lines.No, I haven’t. Either you’d have to loop both lines back up to Bloor-Danforth somehow … or you build a separate east-west line between Wellington and Queen somewhere. But there’s dozens of views on that … and really I think there needs to be some modelling done to see the effect of building a line from Danforth to Yonge, to see how many people use it based on which configuration. I feel if you bring it in too far south (like Union), then you actually make it inconvenient for too many people. Where are people on the Danforth line going? I bet most work north of Wellington. How many work north of Queen? We need a study here, not more backchair debate.
Meanwhile, I fear that a DRL will fail to properly serve parts of the city that will also require service at some point. Quite frankly, I think we will one day (50 years or so) need two east-west solutions south of Bloor – not just one. On the east, one could easily envision one line that heads out to the Pape/Danforth and onto Thorncliffe (let’s call it the Don Mills line) and another that heads to Donlands and Portlands, as these areas are developed.
LikeLike
While I commend the idea of using an elevated structure. It really isn’t a viable idea, it destroys street characteristics, lowers land values, an eye sore and is noisy. Chicago is currently looking at replacing the existing north side elevated. The current option are renovate existing structure ($2.9 B), replace with a 3 track option ($4B), replace with a modern 4 track option($4.2B) and tunnel with a two track option ($4B). The two track tunnel was ultimately dropped due to impacts on purple line service and other local stops.
The point is that in many cases the elevated is not that much cheaper than a tunnel. There are some an additional maintenance costs associate with both elevated and tunnel structures. The elevated trains in Chicago were initially built to get around the difficult soil conditions and high water table that is present in many parts of the city. See Exhibit Boards at the project document site.
What about using a stacked tunnel like the Canada line through the downtown core? I was thinking along either along Adelaide (problem getting under or around St.Marys Church) or initially along Front then to Wellington. It would probably have some additional costs because of the station depths required to get around the existing infrastructure (Yonge/University line and sewers).
Steve: I would prefer to see detailed engineering studies on the problems of a single-level tunnel before getting into the stacking option. A stacked tunnel implies cut-and-cover construction, although a twin-bore through downtown has its own issues with depth (you can’t bore close to the surface) and width (the two bores cannot be side by side). I suspect it will be cut-and-cover no matter what.
LikeLike
Is it a case of having an excellent routing figured out, and then finding the funding based on selling the excellent routing, or finding the funding for the general idea, and then working out the details?
In the latter case, all this discussion isn’t going to amount to much. In the former case, we need to figure out what the Funding Fathers would consider to be an ‘excellent routing’. (May not meet the criteria we have in mind.)
LikeLike