Public meetings regarding the Metrolinx Yonge Corridor Relief Study and the City of Toronto/TTC Relief Line Project Assessment have been announced:
- Saturday April 5, 9:00 am to 1:00 pm at the Sheraton Centre Dominion Ballroom (Queen Street opposite City Hall)
- Tuesday April 8, 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm at Richmond Hill Presbyterian Church (10066 Yonge Street, north of Major MacKenzie) (Metrolinx study only)
- Thursday April 10, 5:30 pm to 9:30 pm at Riverdale Collegiate (1094 Gerrard Street East at Jones Avenue)
- Saturday April 12, 9:00 am to 12:00 noon at Holy Name Parish (71 Gough Avenue, Danforth one block west of Pape) (City/TTC study only)
A new website has been created under the name regionalrelief.ca with links to various aspects of these studies. There are three main branches only one of which contains new content.
- The Metrolinx branch takes readers to the Metrolinx Regional Relief Strategy project page which reflects the status as of the February 2014 board meeting.
- The City of Toronto branch goes to a subsite dedicated specifically to the Project Assessment for the Relief Line. This includes a mechanism for public participation in formulation of the Terms of Reference for this study.
- The York Region branch goes to the VivaNext page for the Yonge subway Richmond Hill extension.
I will update this article if new material appears before the public meetings.
Steve Munro 
Steve reading through the Metrolinx pages is somewhat disconcerting.
First off comes what I see as a first fatal mistake in terms of budget and setting future expectations for areas still further north, as they continue to push the notion of Yonge Street extension.
This will likely consume 10% of the money that would be required to really undertake a transformation of transit across Metro, or perhaps more materially 2/3 of the cost of a DMRL. To my mind it would be better to build this as LRT, and build more of it. The capacity is not required in this area, where it is required further south in order to support adding rapid transit this far north.
They to my mind compound their initial error in their analysis of Yonge capacity. Are they not counting chickens before they hatch. Are they ignoring limitations that have been previously discussed, or is their someway they are proposing to address this that I missed?
The more important concern I have is that they appear to believe that somehow the are going to get to the 42K mark, unless they are effectively counting capacity that already exists in terms of the Rocket trains. They are still in effect talking about getting 40k, which would say adding the signals plus ATC will permit something on the order of a 95 second headway on Yonge. Based on current loading at Bloor at peak, I do not understand how this train clears the Bloor station that fast. Does it not take 8-10 seconds in 8-10 seconds out plus 30-40 seconds stopped at platform, or does it just feel like that. It would mean the next train would have to be there 45 seconds or less after the one on platform cleared the station, seems really quick, how close are these signals and control points going to be? Or are they counting the DRL as built and dwell times at bloor being reduced to the order of 25 seconds?
Steve: The York Region page is interesting because it perpetuates some of the statements the TTC once made about available capacity that they have partly recanted since Andy Byford’s arrival. Specifically, they have double counted ATC and New Signals which are the same project. The probable reduction in headway is from 140 seconds to 120, or possibly 110 (27%). The new subway trains do add capacity, but this has already been consumed by natural growth and the backlog of demand. Some travel will divert to the Spadina leg once the Vaughan extension opens. However, much of the new capacity will be eaten up by demand growth before the Richmond Hill extension even opens, and that’s why we need more parallel capacity both for long haul (GO) and short haul (DRL) trips.
What project is going to actually push traffic to the Spadina side after the Yonge side has been extended? I understand how that would work when Spadina is longer than Yonge, but not when Yonge extends again to match. Why would traffic that can board the Yonge line directly travel to Spadina when they can board Yonge directly, unless we build projects to deliberately push traffic there (like say connecting an LRT from Richmond Hill to Spadina, and not to Yonge, so core bound traffic would stay on Spadina.
Steve: Some people are coming to the Yonge line from well to the west, and it will be advantageous for them to use Spadina.
To add salt to the wound they are still not looking at running a connection initially to the Crosstown, which means that Eglinton and south will likely become an issue, forcing longer dwell times at stations as people try to force their way off trains that are overloaded, unless they really can achieve a 95 second headway. Basically Steve, a 60% increase in capacity on Yonge would be great, and would solve a lot of problems, but sounds dangerously close to magic without building a few 3 platform stations.
Steve: The issue of bringing the DRL up to Eglinton has been a burning one for years and owes as much to the TTC’s foot-dragging as it does to Metrolinx. If the TTC had been taking the DRL seriously for the past three decades, it would have been built by now, but too many of their staff had a fetish for trying to jam everyone onto the YUS with outrageous estimates of its future capacity.
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My concern is that it would appear to me, that they are in essence ignoring or wishing away existing issues (previous mistakes) and planning as though they do not exist. Also they are compounding them by creating more overload, and spending money on infrastructure that does not make sense. While I agree that Yonge is at the core of Toronto, it does not make sense to build this extension as Subway, even if you ignore the lack of capacity that this would make worse further south.
If you must extend subway – as Robert Wightman said before – extend it to Steeles as it is the Toronto subway, and this far only because this creates a logical end to extension. Once you cross Steeles I see no easy place to say enough and no more. The only reason I can see even going that far would be to provide for more turnaround capacity to handle load we are going to be sending to Yonge anyway.
Beyond that, while I understand their logic with regards to “the missing link”, it makes more sense to me to build a Viva/YRT LRT, that would connect further north replacing bus routes as it went. Seems to me, even with a DMRL and a Don Mills LRT to intercept demand from the east of the Yonge Line, it will be hard enough to accommodate demand, without consuming all available capital and preventing other lines from being built.
Queen’s Park and Metrolinx need to take an integrated look at the entire region, and stop pandering. LRT has the capacity North of Finch, subway will not have the capacity south of Sheppard on the Yonge line based on current projections. We will need to build at least a couple (3+) substantial transitways in Mississauga, a couple in Etobicoke, a couple at least in Scarborough in addition to the Crosstown, which will need to be extended east as well, something in Markham … Clearly these cannot be built as subway, as the funding is not practically available. Face up to this reality, look at capacity issues, and build what is needed, and not white elephants. As it is we are going to cripple what we have already in an attempt to do that which should not be attempted.
Vivanext documents seem to assume that Toronto is planning to build Sheppard etc as subway, (Rob Ford proposed subway). To me the extension beyond adding a turnaround north of Finch should be LRT, and Viva should be prepared to convert their current proposals to LRT. When LRT demands are exceeded we could look at subway, however it is hard to imagine. The subway must end somewhere!!
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It is important to note that the advertised headway is the *average* across the entire line. With ATC, trains can queue up very close to each other and enter and leave Bloor Stn. nose to tail, albeit very slowly. The ride will be slow down to Union, but the advertised capacity can probably be achieved. The issue will be the passenger flows at the stations, and whether the platforms will get backlogged. What the TTC doesn’t mention is that while the capacity of the line will be increased, the speed of travel along the entire line will be considerably reduced.
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This is what I have been saying for several years. See this page. I’m going to have to update the cost estimates to reflect current dollars, but my suggestion remains that the subway should be extended to Steeles (to allow half the peak period trains to turn back at Finch and the other half at Steeles. A same-level platform transfer to an LRT line that emerges above ground north of Steeles could be built all the way to Elgin Mills Road, including a 1 km tunnel from just south of Major Mac to just north of Crosby where there is no room for a median. Oh yea, there should be enough funds to convert the BRT to LRT from Richmond Hill Centre east to Woodbine and west to Dufferin.
Before anyone in York Region accuses me of wanting to impose an LRT on them, let me be clear that I have been a resident of Richmond Hill for over a dozen years. This would be far more useful transit developement than subway to RHC.
Steve: I agree that there needs to be an end to the subway somewhere, and that York Region needs to start being more committed to its eventual LRT network than simply building VIVA busways.
However, remember the context in which the Richmond Hill subway plan developed. The TTC was in full bore subway mode and had not yet (to the degree it ever really did so) embraced Transit City and LRT. The subway fraternity was so paranoid about the Ridership Growth Strategy’s original omission of any subway lines (which, by definition, cannot be short-term, low cost improvements) that they forced an amendment to include the subway extensions as TTC “priorities”. The potential of the YUS to absorb additional riding was consistently overstated so that the threat of crowding through a Richmond Hill extension was kept at bay.
In this environment, nobody was talking about LRT north of Steeles. When I wrote to the TTC asking why the Spadina extension was not even studied as the beginning of an LRT network, the response was that the EA had already rejected LRT as impractical. How did this happen? Well, the EA was looking not at the Vaughan extension but at the proposed subway loop via Steeles linking the two branches of the YUS and, obviously, this would have to be a subway line. That’s the context in which LRT was dropped from further study, and to say that it even had a chance of being examined for the York Region extensions would be an outright lie.
TTC management has a lot to answer for in the mishandling of the potential for network expansion.
Meanwhile, the folks in York Region want a one fare ride to downtown with frequent, all day subway service, not a GO train that runs a few times on weekdays and costs more. We will be investing a lot to make this possible. The foot dragging on expansion of GO contributes to the perception that only a subway is a viable option.
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Since some commentators have brought up the discussion about headways, I have to ask if there has been any updates on the situation of the poor performance of the TRs? Some of the headways that were mentioned above seem very unrealistic based of the current performance of the TRs. More specifically the abysmal time it takes for a TR to unload and load (the long door cycle and the overly sensitivity of the doors). Based on my daily commutes it really does feel like the Yonge line is facing far more delays daily than the pre-TR era, it’s also somewhat evident in the much greater number of passengers waiting on the platform during non-peak hours.
Perhaps modern subway technology and the overzealous focus on safety isn’t the most beneficial when it comes to pre-21st Century transit systems 🙂
Steve: The timing on the TR doors is supposed to be adjusted, and one can find the occasional train where this seems to have happened. All the same, getting these trains “up to snuff” seems to be taking forever. The higher loading during off peak periods is not due to headway issues as much as it is to growth in demand. In a private conversation, Andy Byford mentioned the idea of increasing off-peak service, but I think there’s a budget constraint on such a move.
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Has a US style commutter rail LRT ever been considered as an option? Phoenix proposed (and I believe has or is building) LRT down a major highway corridor. Would be a GO type service only smaller and not headway limited. Would be issue without dedicated tracks.
Steve: The only place we even have a highway corridor that made provision for transit was the Spadina expressway. Also, it’s important to distinguish between an “LRT” that is serving commuter rail type demand that is essentially “collect in the suburbs and deliver to downtown”, and a line with many stops serving local residential and employment nodes along the way. Considering that the Ontario government refused to even acknowledge the existence of “LRT” until comparatively recently, it’s no surprise that this type of operation has never been proposed.
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I used to see this happen regularly in Kuala Lumpur on the Kelana Jaya line (same tech as Vancouver’s Millenium Line) before they brought in 4-carriage trains. There are 5 extremely busy stations in the centre of the line and there was a pocket track (capable of storing 3 trains) 3 stations from the first of those busy stations … so during peak hours they would deliver trains from the pocket track, skipping 3 stations and running empty to the first of the busy stations, where the train would load up. When the train reached the end of the line it would be returned, empty, to the pocket track, added to the in-service fleet, or taken out of service if it was a westbound train (with the depot 2 km west of the last stop).
They stopped doing this when the 4 carriage trains arrived but I think they will need to return to this practice since the line is being extended southwest to serve a very busy suburb.
I suppose that this would be like adding trains at Davisville (southbound) and St Andrew (Northbound) but they don’t have room for more than 1 train at any particular time.
It’s sad that an organization like TTC would overestimate by double counting the benefits of ATC and signal improvements. Over promising and under performing is no the way to gain support from a frustrated public.
Cheers, Moaz
Steve: And to reply to Mimmo’s observation, although trains may queue up they still have to deal with a terminal somewhere, and until that constraint is removed, all those closely spaced trains will wait forever to get through terminals.
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The problem we have is that it’s hard to build a substantial case for these “transitways” when demand and/or funding are too low for even frequent express bus service.
Dundas St from Kipling Station west is a prime example. Metrolinx talks about a “RT” line from Kipling Station out to Brant St. When Mississauga Transit introduced the MiExpress101 they ran it out to Trafalgar Road in Oakville … but the bus only ran 20 minutes frequencies during weekday peak hours. A few months later they cut the MiExpress101 back to Ridgeway drive (just east of the 403) where it ran until last week.
Last week Mississauga Transit changed the MiExpress101 by routing it to South Common Mall (Burnhamthorpe and Erin Mills Parkway), replacing the old 201 (formerly 81) Dundas Express. This bus runs every 14 minutes all day *but not on weekends*. The old 101 is now the 101A … still running every 20 minutes during peak hours only.
With that level of service, do you think there is a need to build a Transitway or “RT” out to Brant St.?
I’d be happy to see GO Transit run a bus from South Common to Burlington GO Station via Dundas at least until MiWay and Oakville Transit and Burlington Transit have the demand to operate some kind of continuous and/or overlapping route (just as MiWay and Brampton Transit run on Hurontario St. GO used to run buses on Yonge St north of Toronto before YRT/VIVA took over (as well as on highway 2 until DRT Pulse recently took over) so there is a bit of a precedent.
But is there demand and funding for an “RT” or Transitway at the moment? I’d say the answer is no to both counts … at least for the moment.
I would like to see a “Rocket” bus running along Eglinton from Mount Dennis Station to the (as yet unbuilt) Matheson Gateway at the Matheson/Eglinton/Renforth triangle. I have no hope that the city will start building an LRT along this corridor by 2017 so they can be ready in time for the 2021 opening of the Eglinton Crosstown.
Cheers, Moaz
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Speaking about the slow growth of the Richmond Hill GO network (I regularly drive north to Aurora because of RH’s infrequent service), any word on when the extension to Gormley will happen? Or if it’s still happening? I can’t find reference to it on GO’s website and there has been no news on this, despite an original promise of opening in 2013.
Steve: Don’t know what’s happening here.
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I have no idea why GO has nothing on their website, as it is moving along nicely.
I have heard that it was supposed to open for this coming September, but that remains to be seen.
They started work on a lay-over facility back in 2012. It is on the east side of the line just south of Bethesda Sideroad. This is roughly in the centre of the Quaker siding (6750′ long) which is on the west side of the line. The siding had ended just north of Stouffville Sideroad, roughly where the new GO station will be located. As of a few weeks ago when I was in the area, there was no visible work on the station.
The west track (the Quaker siding) now continues all the way south to Elgin (just north of Elgin Mills Road) and has been in service since late last year. A new Elgin controlled location with full crossovers was installed a few hundred metres north of Elgin Mills Road, removing the old one immediately north of the road where the double-tracking from the south ended, thus the line is now double-tracked to the north end of Quaker.
The siding track at Richmond Hill station, on the east side of the line, used to connect at its north end with a non-CTC (local control only) switch located just north of Crosby. Last fall, the switch was relocated to the south side of Crosby and is now a dual-controlled (CTC) switch. New signals were installed at this location, with home signals for the new controlled location where the siding connects with the east track. A new block signal was installed for the west track as well. These signals were activated only in the past week.
So, the double-tracking is complete and in full operation. I hope to get out to see what the states of the new station construction and layover facility are. It seems possible that this may be open for this September.
Steve: I have sent a note to Metrolinx asking about the status of this station.
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I guess my answer would be not yet. But I fully expect that Mississauga will continue to intensify and more important will become more subject to both commuttes inbound to it, and through it. At some point it will need to react to this with some kind of express transit (hence will need). I do not expect it to look like Toronto’s anytime soon, but it will not resemble its current [state] either. (Note transitway, not LRT, as I expect 1 of those, perhaps 2 over the next 20-30 years).
Etobicoke, well I think we need to build something accross both the north and south side, as well as something that runs between them. Both extremes will likely be LRT as they are already on the table, and needed now.
However, one of my major concerns is that to solve the congestion issues across the region requires building interlinking transit that permits the shorter cross jurisdiction rides, solid inside Toronto transit, and something to collect people to permit GO to work without people actually using a car. As these system increase in scope and ridership, some will need their own arteries to move so they do not get bogged down with traffic.
The region will have a capped total amount of money it can access that needs to be shared amongst these projects over the next 20 or so years. This is likely to be on the order of $30-$50 billion, that needs to solve all the issues of the GTHA. You blow $3b on a subway here, $7b on a subway there, and another $4b on a subway there, oh and that other one North York really wants call that $8b, and suddenly you are out of money and can’t build the only one you really need. For those who constantly bitch about the Crosstown, yes it is in the same budget range, but it is across the city. Metrolinx talks about $50 billion in projects, but I would be surprised to see all that money surface in a timely manner. If we are likely at this rate to blow virtually all available capital between the Vaughan, Yonge, Scarborough and Sheppard extensions.
We need to solve Toronto’s problems, and leave money on the table for the surrounding region, otherwise those cars will be on Toronto’s roads. Frankly, there are required regional projects that GO has not put on the table, as they are not there yet. So we cannot financially afford to build subway where LRT would serve, and certainly not where busway would serve. Too many applications where we are looking at subway to serve fairly long extensions where we are close to a good busway and a standard or extended bus a minute doing the job. This would apply to the Vaughan, Yonge extensions, and I suspect a realistic forecast would have it dangerously close for the Scarborough extension {yet an LRT would not do}.
Steve: This is a matter of some dispute. A comment attributed to Jennifer Keesmaat, the Chief Planner, during the LRT/Subway debate at Council was that the projected demand on the Scarborough subway is inflated by commuters from Markham who could be using GO service. This is not unlike the situation at Finch Station with riders from York Region who could be on GO if only there were better service.
We cannot say our already built areas will see massive transit growth to go directly from a moderately busy bus to full blown subway, and say outlying areas will not need anything for the next couple of decades. Rather build what we need (if you need a bus a minute now, build an LRT and build for a 3 car 2 headway minute design, this allows a tripling of rideship, better still allow space for platform extensions etc for 4 cars. If you can reasonably show 5k allowing for 18k should suffice. If that number is already at 13-20k it might be more reasonable to allow for something over 24K.
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The Gormley extension is still on the Big Move Map … it’s on page 4 of this .pdf.
Not exactly sure what the updated timeline is.
Cheers, Moaz
Steve: As I mentioned in a previous comment, I have asked Metrolinx for an update on this.
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Did you people vote for a Tory in a recent election. You won’t get a train if you vote for the wrong party. Hopefully I am saying that in jest but with politics these days who knows.
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I’ve been digging through some older piles around my efforts to have a Front St. transitway vs. the now-expired Front St. road folly. Too bad we didn’t get to doing some overdue transit there instead. The point being within the 1993 WWLRT EA there’s some quite powerful arguments for doing east-west transit relief in the core, parallel to the Gardiner/Lakeshore/GO/King/Queen line – including the map of the original 1985 Relief Line yet now the Downtown Relief Line has been morphed to be far more about Yonge St. it seems.
We need more clarity about what is supposed to be relieved, and where, and then let’s also think about how to improve options. For instance, why should we rebuild the limited-to-motor-vehicles Gardiner without thinking of transit there too/instead even. Something aligned with all that transport demand would also help the Bloor subway as now sometimes people travel up to Bloor from lower Etobicoke, use Bloor, and then head south again.
Coming clean on names, what and where the problems are, and also on the degree of subsidy to cars would be a really helpful thing. At worst, I think we risk having a stubway in the core, and real poverty while service truly is as big a mess as the roads.
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A Bloor-Danforth Downtown Loop could be used to relieve Yonge line overcrowding and having the Wye in place already will help this endeavor. From the Yonge St. Station moving westward, all traffic in both directions would utilize Bay St.-Lower Level. Moving toward Museum, the 2 tracks would branch into 4 tracks with the middle tracks merging into the YUS tracks as they do now and the outer tracks straddling the Y-U-S tracks. Museum would become a 4 track station with 2 side platforms (B-D) and 1 island platform (Y-U-S). Stairs, escalators, and elevators would be utilized to connect the platforms. This configuration would continue from Museum to Union. From King to Wellesley the configuration would form 2 island platforms with cross-platform transfers (Y-U-S inner and B-D outer). From Wellesley the B-D tracks would dive under the Y-U-S tracks and head westward and merge with the tracks that serve Bay St.-Upper Level (no flyover would be necessary since all traffic from Danforth would use the Lower Level of Bay). From Bay St.-Upper Level the traffic would continue as it does now to St. George-Lower Level and on to Kipling.
Steve: There are a few tiny problems. In many of the locations you cite, there are buildings in the way of your proposed extra tracks, not to mention the platforms and circulation elements needed to access them. Also, you are completely silent on what would happen with trains and passengers going to the west, not to mention the Spadina subway.
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Steve, while I understand the notion of including these people, 1-your point with regards to service is apt, and 2-why is the load capacity max for LRT cited in the Toronto documents (Scarborough Rapid Transit Options July-2013) cited as being 15k. Is it only feasibly to operate a 3 car LRT on a 2 minute headway in this area? Or is this a choice to show the extra subway capacity?
Steve: At one point in the design work, there was an option to build at least part of the Malvern extension at grade on streets. Train length and headway are constrained by stop geometry and relationship to other traffic.
Also why is the LRT ridership projection so much lower. Is there something in the McCowan road corridor that is that sensitive to being north of the 401 at McCowan as opposed to Markham? If so would it not make as much sense to route an LRT straight up McCowan? Is the area already too tight to do so?
Steve: Different assumptions were made about populations and their relationship to the subway/LRT corridors. This is not a case of the same model being used for two different proposals. Also, the model did not include major upgrade in GO services either on Stouffville line or potential future route via CP through Malvern. If we are going to make multi-billion dollar decisions about transit, they should be based on network alternatives, not simply on the effect of one pet project.
Also if the ridership really is that much higher (ie it actually materializes) is there any indication of destination? Also how does this compare to current through Kennedy, would this not represent a meaningful increase in core bound trips through Yonge? If so why are the same planners not screaming murder about load issues there?
Steve: You are not supposed to notice that sort of problem with the numbers, nor with the planners’ blinkered view of what is important. To their credit, the TTC has flagged increased riding from the Scarborough Subway, and stated that this accelerates the need for new capacity into downtown via the DRL.
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This achieves the advertised capacity by warehousing riders on trains stuck in tunnels. I’ve experienced five or ten minute crawls into Finch or Kipling because they were backlogged. Now I get to experience crawls into other busy stations? No thanks.
Steve: Crawls into terminals reveal a few operational problems. First and most obvious is the physical constraint on the speed of turnarounds. When service is late, the signal system should be dispatching trains as fast as they arrive. Also, even when service is not disrupted, trains can back up from terminals at the end of peak periods when they have too much running time. I won’t go into the gory details, but it reveals a basic conflict between the need for extra time for the height of the peak, but the problems this brings on the shoulder periods. This will only get worse if the peak headway is reduced.
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So what you are saying really is, the media, public relations portion of the city staff and politicians are simply not conveying this information with the level of import or urgency as to have it carry weight in the public debate.
I would have thought if this were to create say 4K/hour increase in trips through Yonge at this point it would merit Star & Globe headlines like “New Scarborough subway can’t deliver riders Downtown” or “Toronto Subway system faces Imminent Collapse” (have to buy paper for that one).
Steve: The problem is more that a DRL was downplayed for years by the TTC and so it didn’t have the necessary prominence in their plans, and more recently, every debate turns on building a subway station in every single ward that is not in the old City of Toronto.
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Further to relief and service improvements that GO is planning. I understand that GO has never really looked at LRT style commuter rail, however, is there room in any of their corridors to do so (room for an additional track, or dedicating a track in each direction). Could the DVP/404 corridor be altered to accept it?
Steve: Many of the GO corridors are constrained especially when plans to upgrade GO capacity are taken into account. There is also the matter of North American safety standards for a corridor shared by mainline rail and transit vehicles.
As for the DVP/404, it isn’t wide enough for the auto traffic today, never mind for additional or repurposed lanes for transit. Note that any transit route on a highway will have very poor connection to local neighbourhoods and will operate more as a long-haul service between major stations.
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Is there a special spacing additional spacing requirements between rails that carry only light and from those that carry heavy, or are you referring to the time separations requirements between light and heavy rail that must be maintained. Are there any pertinent corridors where tracks could be doubled entire length?
Steve: Spacing and vehicle strength are both issues. Time separation is not possible if we are talking about a corridor with frequent GO service. This scheme is only used for places where mainline rail operations run off hours including overnight.
Pertinent corridors? No.
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I am posting this as a comment so that readers will see it as an update in this stream. The status of Gormley station is that GO is working on it, but there is no set date. Mark Osler at Metrolinx advises:
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The Transport Canada Regulations, which you can find and down load by Googling them, give the following:
If I am reading the diagrams correctly then in addition there must be 8 feet of clearance from the centre line of the track to the side on a bridge or in a tunnel and 18 feet of clearance on regular right of way. A single track line requires a 36 foot wide right of way, 2 tracks 49 feet and 3 tracks 62 feet. There are not a lot of sections of right of way on the Stouffville or Newmarket Subs that are 49 feet wide.
The minimum height for a Tunnel is 22 feet, if there is no overhead power system. If the line is a federally regulated line, which all railway corridors in and around the GTA are even if they are owned by Metrolinx, then they must obey Transport Canada regulations and be ready for a collision with a 100 car unit oil train.
Temporal separation may get rid of the buff loading requirements but it does not affect the track clearance ones.
In the US where an LRT line is on the right of way of a railway corridor some of the grade crossing require full crossing gates and the use of standard diesel train horns at each. This does not make the LRT lines very popular in built up areas.
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There is a large amount of blame that goes to Jack Layton for the relief line to be delayed. So much time wasted. Layton was such a troll.
Steve: I’m not sure I would call him a troll as there was a lot of good work that came out of his era. However, his blinkered view of how suburban development (and subways) would offset the need for more capacity in the core was extremely short-sighted. In fairness, I must say that what was originally planned for the railway lands (and by extension other near downtown areas) was all commercial, not residential, development that would have generated tons of commuting traffic and made for large, empty neighbourhoods at night. The return to “downtown living” has offset a lot of that, but we still need more subway capacity.
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Thanks that was exactly the answer I was looking for. To implement the notion of LRT to this area would by my understanding therefore require a 62 foot wide corridor, given that I understand that access to other potential rail uses must be maintained. This is unfortunate, as it rather caps the amount of capacity along with forcing relatively low frequency service. If it could have LRT beside GO you could likely add another 15-20K in service in a service that would have possibly been more attractive than the subway to the core, as it would only have a handful of stops.
Does that not therefore, even with a lot of sidings in effect cap GO capacity to around the 12k/h mark here? While this is not perforce an issue at this location today, it would be easy to see moderate development over the next decade or two this making this a real issue.
Metrolinx has seemed to indicate that the Don Mills LRT is to go out as far North 7 to meet this BRT. Is the plan to make this an LRT with a lower stop frequency so as to act as relief for Yonge. If only a DRL to Danforth is built, this line will be interesting, if a DMRL is built and Don Mills is built with subway stop frequency, it will be interesting to see how load builds as it goes that far north. Also to see what impact it has on terminus loading of a DRL. I would think there would be a potential issue putting this load and Danforth load on in the same station. Also how much load would transfer from the Crosstown in that circumstance, and how much would just continue to the Yonge line.
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As long as they run to Transport Canada rules there seems to me a maximum through put of one train every 10 minutes; that is all Union can handle. With a seated capacity of 2000 per train it looks like 12k/h. If Metrolinx could get Transport Canada to drop their archaic regulations on lines which will never see a long freight train again then they could carry a lot more. They would also need to re think Union because its platforms are too narrow for safety.
Positive Train Control, PTC, probably would allow closer headways because it would know the exact start and end point of each train and the amount of stopping space required. This “should” allow closer train spacing for GO equipment while still maintaining the spacing needed for long freights.
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Moaz: Mississauga will certainly need rapid transit along Dundas at least to Hurontario Street … but will we really need a BRT from Kipling Station to Brant Street in the lifetime of the Big Move? And if the planners think that we will, what do they plan on doing to support that growing demand over the next 2 decades.
Yonge St. had GO bus service north of Finch until recently when it was taken over by YRT/VIVA. There was a GO bus on Highway 2 out in Durham Region, replaced by the PULSE bus last year. But there is no GO bus or local express bus running on Dundas St.
Moaz: it’s time to embrace the DVP as a GO Transit corridor and start running buses in their own lanes as far down as possible. Currently the bus lane runs to the rail bridge north of Wynford but there is room south of the rail bridge for bus lanes until just north of the Don Mills interchange. If the DRL runs to Eglinton and Don Mills (or even Overlea and Millwood) there is an opportunity to direct trips onto the subway rather than downtown … Assuming that enough people want to make that connection.
I think it’s also time for TTC to restructure their express bus routes and hand off the double fare downtown express bus routes to GO Transit (using their double deck bus fleet).
Moaz: And Positive Train Control is one of the requirements associated with the new US Federal Railway(?) Administration standards that will allow lighter strength trains on closer head ways “European/Australian style”
Cheers, Moaz
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Although I had not envisaged a transitway going all the way to Burlington, I would suggest that there is a good chance that one will be required, especially if GO does not find a way of running on a much shorter headway. When they hit the cap on this route, growth in this traffic will need an alternate route. I suspect Steve would say, this is not the appropriate routing, as it would normally be intended for intermediate distance trips (within the Burlington to Mississauga area) it might at least help direct these trips away from Lakeshore, and perhaps even take some all the way to Kipling.
However, this too will be an issue, as accummulating significant load that far, will likely result in overloading the Bloor Line, making it look at Islington, like Yonge looks at Sheppard. Toronto really did need to keep the Richview corridor intact, as it was wide enough as originally conceived (either 4 or 6 lane expressway) to run a local and express LRT through.
Load within Toronto from the south will hopefull find a home on a Waterfront LRT, which might even help the King car if it is built close enough. Toronto still needs to imagine how this would be linked to the Bloor line to create a reasonable grid.
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I wonder if the TTC took into account this possibility, along with CPR line GO to this location and a Don Mills LRT to here in their projections for the DMRL. To me, I can start to imagine there existing a need for a full loop at the top and bottom of the DMRL, and 3 platforms at the primary stations. Because it will need to take all additional core bound load from the eastside period. It would be easy to see 6K each from the Crosstown and a Don Mills LRTs, 2-3 K from a GO bus, that would be 14k+ before you got to the Danforth line, with a real increase possible with buses from the east unloading more onto a Don Mills LRT (core bound riders avoiding Yonge after its extension North), and GO service in the CPR corridor.
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What do you mean by a loop at the top and bottom? Are you wanting a loop instead of crossovers because if you do that eats up a lot of real estate or do you wish to combine this line with another so the the cars only go in one direction like the proposal at one time to join Spadina and Yonge at the top? Loops make it difficult to ever extend the line.
Why would all the downtown bound traffic from the east use the DMRL? It would be appropriate to put a lot of them on GO, especially if they can ever get their act together and run service better than once every 10 minutes. The numbers that you have transferring from Crosstown and Don Mills LRT seem a little on the high side. It would be better from a network point of view to build another line than to expand The DMRL to the extent you suggest. I cannot see CP’s North Toronto Sub ever having much in the way of GO service because it is their main line and a lot of it is not wide enough for an extra track or two, besides Yonge (oops yellow line 1 east) cannot absorb them.
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There’s an interesting article in today’s Star about using Lower Bay for interim B-Y relief.
I proposed this idea a while back, but I can’t believe it would cost that much. Hundreds of millions to open up two stairways, install/signal a crossover, and put in two escalators?
Steve: There are several problems with this proposal. First is that adding a crossover between Museum and Lower Bay is not a simple undertaking given the geometry of the existing tunnels. More to the point, however, is the comment that the St. Clair short turns are underutilized. This ignores the fact that the TTC will be extending these trips north to Downsview when the Spadina extension opens, and there have been plans for some time to extend the short turn to Glencairn that has not been implemented thanks to budget cuts. Those underused trains arrive southbound at St. George where they vacuum up transfer riders from BD West who cannot fit onto the through trains from Downsview.
The fundamental problem downtown is that there are more people who want to go there than there is capacity to carry them. We need much more than the proposed “six extra trains per hour”, and we need this capacity somewhere that does not simply pile more riders onto the existing YUS loop.
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Sort of in reverse order:
You are right Yonge cannot absorb any traffic from a CP GO (even a limited a 2 train per hour service) it would need to have a station and siding at the end a D(M)RL. Collection would have to be Brimley road and east I expect.
The numbers I am transferring at the top of a DMRL are high. However, a few years after we actually get a D(M)RL, we will have the Yonge north extension (or LRT I hope) to RHC, and therefore Yonge will be close to fully loaded at Sheppard. If there is an equally good alternative (DM-LRT), core bound riders will likely try to avoid long rides to and down Yonge. If southbound bus riders know that Danforth will be overloaded (TTC projections for Danforth extension show 14k/h), and the Cross-town has room, head west for DMRL, (but not Yonge). This will limit additional loading on D(M)RL at Danforth, but will mean heavier loading here. Also I personally expect to see a fair amount of residential intensification along any well designed and connected LRT line built.
As to GO other line current capacity (including current ability to add trains) on Lakeshore and Stouffville: I expect much of it to be taken up in the area beyond eastside Toronto (Pickering and beyond), and relieving Yonge from well north of Toronto. I agree with more GO ridership, if you think that Transport Canada will revisit train spacing and this gets significantly relaxed, however I have doubts about any relaxation being material enough even with positive train control. Also would require capacity at Union, which is tight.
As to why all additional east side core bound traffic will use D(M)RL, because realistically, all other existing routes will be fully (over) loaded prior to its completion. I also expect that there will be a large latent demand appearing as soon as using transit does not mean feeling like a canned sardine.
I would not build these turns yet, as you are right they are very expensive to build, but I have no trouble imagining the network developing so that we hit 30k + riders on this line very early in its existence, assuming a relatively low stop frequency high capacity DM-LRT is completed at about the same time. Doubly true, given how hard it seems to achieve consensus to build it. By the time a D(M)RL is built latent demand for it will likely be very high, as people will be using earlier/later buses/subways/trains than they want, riding GO they do not want to, and driving (parking) because the TTC is overcrowded. As to building another line, well lets see how far wide of the mark I am on a D(M)RL first, although if my guess is correct, amen. This would be especially true if someone were to build an express GO LRT in the Gatineau Power Corridor.
Of course I am no expert, so my perception could easily be well wide of the mark, especially since I think this may not be in place until something like 2025.
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So if you do this then people who want to go downtown along University have to play station roulette. Do I go to Bay and catch a train there or do I get of at St. George and get one there. Right now everyone transfers at St. George, albeit not onto a empty train. With the extension to York, barf, and the growth in overall ridership every other train north of St. George will not be able to handle the loads. The plan just doesn’t work under any sort of reasonable examination.
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I think the issue is that the proposer sees the problem as being existing load only, and only sees the Yonge side. Even there it would at best be a slight fix, not a real one, and as you say really confusing. I suspect part of what is being missed is the nature of growth. First, it is a larger number than before (50 k/a (1990s) vs 100k/a projected), also because existing peak capacity is fully consumed, we also have the time and load shifting away from desired times and routes. It fails to see the size of the flood upstream. Once Yonge capacity is increased to say 36k/h load will appear to fill a large part of it nearly immediately, and within a couple of years balance will be consumed.
Line extension compounds this problem, if you are loading 27k in capacity to 31k, how many riders are just not there that would be if there was really room. If you say 10% of potential load has already shifted to less desirable routes.
The other thing is that this growth has to follow a different modal split that previous. Even core and downtown bound load has to split to a lower auto mode split. If you add 20K jobs in the core and half are new residents downtown, you cannot put even 3k extra on roads, also, and even that would mean an extra 7k in transit, more likely to see 8k or 9k on transit, meaning an extra 3-4k per hour. Also a great deal of the other 10k are now riding streetcars, which even with new cars will be an issue again soon enough. Robert you are right this solution sees 2 days into the future not even 2 years let alone the the needed 2 decades.
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Steve I have a stupid questions with regards to current plans. We are already underway on the Crosstown, however, should not Scarborough, Yonge extension, etc, be waiting on a DMRL. That would leave the Finch West LRT to Spadina, and Waterfront LRT as viable now, but do not balance of network expansion plans outside the core other than Yonge/YUS/Line 1 capacity increase essentially hinge on an operating DRL to make them viable? If so, assuming we are trying to build a rational system, why are we budgeting other areas before it? I suspect the matched capacity on the west side should support existing and proposed projects short term, however should there not be a change in the order of march on the eastside? (DMRL=>Scarborough expansion, DMRL=>Don Mills LRT=>Yonge extension), with GO expansion likely to do little more than buy a little time with existing network?
Should we not be fast tracking a D(M)RL in order to enable the balance of the system?
Steve: “Scarborough deserves a subway.” Just keep repeating those words. This is politics, not rational transit planning.
That said, the SRT replacement has been in the works for years, and so one could argue that its turn is long overdue. That and the Transit City plan was intended to address Scarborough problems and would be partly completed by now but for political interference at Queen’s Park.
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So because we need to win Scarborough, we budget a local subway that will not solve most of the local issues instead of something that would? We also budget the local subway before something required to make it work? Is that not kind of like building the house before pouring the foundation? Makes you kind of wonder how and selfish and gullible the electorate really is.
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There is some spare capacity south of St. George on University in the AM that could allow for YUS passenger load rebalancing in the interim. Another possible variation of that idea (which requires no capital expenditure) is a variant of an idea the TTC itself once proposed in 1995, but shelved. Run every third westbound (and only westbound) AM BD train from Kennedy down University from 8-9am only (with no stop at Lower Bay), and widen the service on Spadina by 1/3 (with the other 2/3 going all the way to Downsview for now — then that 2/3 would be split half and half with Downsview and Highway 7 once the extension opens).
Why don’t they just try it for six months and see what effect it has on diverting some west-to-south riders from Bloor-Yonge who might elect to take a longer transfer-less ride? Even if you only attract Danforth passengers who just happened to be on the platform as the wye train came by, it will still help. We need some kind of interim solution for the peak period, and I think the TTC is not trying as hard as they can (or be as creative as they can) with the infrastructure and resources they do have. There are constraints at both St. George and Bloor-Yonge with respect to platform space and stairway/escalator capacity. As well, the dwell times there are too long. If you can reduce the dwell times even slightly because of less people going through the station, why wouldn’t it help? OK, so instead of standing on the platforms and crowding the stairways, the passengers skimmed off the platforms will be stuck on trains in the east wye tunnels waiting for the signals to clear. It’s not going to solve the problem or get them where they’re going any faster, but it will help lessen the problem for now and allow the TTC to squeeze more people through the system until a DRL gets planned, funded, and built.
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The problems that would need to be sorted out would be what to do with the trains on Spadina.
1. Do you run an even headway and hold every other train for 60 to 90 seconds at St. George or do you run an uneven headway to eliminate the layover?
2. Also can the west end of Bloor handle the loads with an effective headway of 3:30 instead of 2:20 when the westbound gap starts back eastbound?
3. Can the trains be returned to Bloor eastbound without affecting service on Yonge Univerity or Bloor Danforth.
4. Could the TTC operate an interlining service without completely screwing up? Based on the performance during the wye integration, I would question it.
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It will may also answer that endless call for a “single seat ride”.
Steve: It is physically impossible to give everyone a one-seat ride. As Cllr De Baeremaeker is so fond of telling us when people complain about the Scarborough Subway having only three stops, “everyone will take a bus to the subway anyhow”. They can transfer rather than our having to tear apart the operation of the subway. If we are going to tear anything apart, it should be GO which has a reservoir of capacity possible from the northeast that far more directly addresses the desire to get downtown quickly. But, of course, it’s not a “subway”.
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To answer your questions …
1. Irregular headways on Spadina — there were scheduled irregular headways on the Keele-St. George segment of the old integrated system. Irregular headways are really only a problem when trains are fully loaded, which on Spadina, isn’t the case. There’s headroom there to have some trains more heavily loaded than others.
2. Yes, because by the time the gaps get to Kipling, the rush hour will be almost over. This operation is for the peak AM hour only (8-9) when crowding at Bloor-Yonge is at its worst.
3. They could probably run back to Museum as part of the regular YUS service, then go out of service and return to Greenwood. Rush hour trains are going back to yards during this time anyway.
4. The people who ran that are all long gone.
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Steve once we have implemented the full automatic train control, if short turns were implemented to their maximum – say every third train, at the closest crossovers to Bloor and St George, would it be possible to get headway in this portion of the line only down to 100 seconds, while leaving the area north effectively with 150 second average headway (10 seconds worse than current). Those 3rd trains would then empty the major transfer stations every 5 minutes.
I understand even if possible this does not meet demand for the long or even medium term, but would it buy time? Or only provide another excuse not to act on the long term solution?
Steve: This idea requires that the trains originating from the BD line be capable of ATO to interline with the University line, but BD will run manually for at least the next decade. Also, at some point the trains that go south on University have to go north on Yonge, and that 100 second headway capability must exist over much of the Yonge line. You are asking for the YUS to be severely stressed for operational capacity in order to provide only a short term fix.
You also presume that a headway of 300 seconds (every third train north of wherever the turnback is implemented on the Spadina leg) is adequate when the current headway is 140 seconds to St. Clair West with plans to push this further north.
I am really getting tired of people dreaming up exotic ways to hold the system together with duct tape and the ongoing rumblings that maybe we won’t need a DRL after all. Such talk is extremely irresponsible, and it is the TTC’s downplaying of the DRL for the past decades that brought us to this position.
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