Updated 2 April 13, 2014 at 2:50pm: Eric Miller, the author of the illustrations originally used for this article, has objected to their being taken out of context and has asked that they be removed.
Meanwhile, the information is available in a paper by Dr. Miller of February 24, 2012 which is available on the City of Toronto’s website. This is cited in a City Planning presentation at the Sheppard Transit Corridor Expert Panel on March 2, 2012.
I am hoping to obtain new information about Scarborough travel patterns from a regular reader. When this is available, I will update the article.
In another thread’s comments, I mentioned that I would post travel pattern info for Scarborough to show how this behaves.
The diagrams linked here were originally produced by Eric Miller at the UofT, and they have been included in a few presentations including one recently at the UTSC Eco-Summit by André Sorensen. The source data come from a 2006 survey conducted by the University on behalf of governments in the GTHA. More recent data are about to be published, but they were not available when these charts were created.
There are two pairs of charts in this set, one for the planning district north of the 401, and one for the district to the south. For each district, both the AM Peak and All Day flows are shown.
North of the 401 (Planning District 16), 36% of the travel is within the district, and a further 19% is to the area south of the 401. Only 6% of the travel is to downtown. During the AM peak, the percentage to downtown doubles, but other demands are comparable (on a percentage basis) to the all day values.
South of the 401 and west of Kingston Road / Morningside (Planning District 13), there is a slightly higher proportion of trips going downtown, but the lion’s share remains within Scarborough and to other suburbs.
There are a few caveats about these charts.
- There is a typo on the first chart where there is a reference to internal trips within PD13. This should of course refer to PD16.
- The values shown are percentages, not absolute numbers.
- There is no information for south-eastern Scarborough.
I’m not excusing the shortcomings, just saying these are the charts I have available. Once the updated data come out, it will be intriguing to see how this has evolved (and not just for Scarborough) and to attach numbers to the percentages.
The basic point is that although, yes, there are many people who go downtown from Scarborough, there are many more who are travelling to some other location, and their transit requirements should not be forgotten.
Updated April 13, 2014:
In response to comments asking about the context of the travel charts, a fifth page has been added showing a sample of corridors on which LRT could be implemented to form a network in Scarborough. Note that this map is part of the presentation from which the others are taken, and it is not “my” map. Moreover, it is “descriptive” in the sense of “this is what could be done”, not “prescriptive” in the sense of “you must built exactly this network and nothing else”. Comments in the vein of “why here and not there” will be deleted as I really don’t want to get into a hypothetical discussion of a network here.
Steve Munro 
Steve, how dare you confuse people’s arguments with reality! Shame on you!
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Fair point you make, but I would conjecture that downtown trips have the potential to increase once the subway extension is completed as it will be a much more convenient trip. This will affect travel decisions and more long term, job decisions.
Steve: But downtown trips could also be carried on existing and potential GO corridors if only the service and fares were attractive. This is a lot cheaper way to handle these trips from Scarborough than building a subway.
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What? The TTC has no plans to provide subways to people in Scarborough for those “other locations” who are not going downtown. Scandalous! Disrespectful!
The latte-sipping bicycle-riding pinko kooks who live downtown have subways all over the place. Scarborough deserves no less!
What is really infuriating is the David Miller-style leftist concept of “Arithmetic” that they use to try to hold us down by saying that there isn’t the demand to justify subways. What a load of left-wing garbage!
Same to the usual leftist trash line that we can’t afford it. The private sector will pay for it. Private companies are lining up begging to invest billions in subways. I KNOW THAT’S TRUE BECAUSE ROB FORD SAYS SO.
Even although I’m going to drive a car to work until its lethal cancer-causing emissions kill me, I want the transit that I’m not using to be subways, subways, subways! And if I don’t get my way I’m going to throw a tantrum and hold my breath until I turn blue and die!
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Hear hear! As a former resident of PD16 I tried using this and other data to show my neighbours and others in PD16 that an LRT on Sheppard was the best option.
Funny thing about numbers and statistics though is that they are easy to ignore when they don’t support a particular point of view. I heard from many that planners make these up and don’t know what actually happens. Also got ignored when the transit debate got to the ‘we deserve a subway’ emotional responses. Many of these folks were just impossible.
Steve: And yet planners’ numbers were used to “justify” both the Sheppard and the Scarborough subways.
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… and let’s not forget travel *into* Scarborough. We want them to use transit too!
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It’s sad to see that most of Scarborough thinks subway is the only option. If you keep extending the subway, a subway trip from northern Scarborough to Yonge-Bloor would be 40 minutes long. Same with the Spadina extension. Not too attractive in my opinion.
I always wonder why can’t the DRL be something like a downtown tunnel under Queen or King St for electrified GO train. Connect the two ends to the current GO rails. Do we really need to use something that looks like a TR on the DRL? The tunnel portion could have two overlapping lines. On the east end, one line can connected to the Richmond Hill line while the other can service Scarborough at Kennedy Station or Malvern. I think this idea is much better than any subway or LRT extension. Money saved can help fund a network of LRTs for local travel.
Steve: A GO tunnel is one of the options that was included in the Metrolinx review of Union Station capacity relief. Among the downsides of any such scheme are that (a) this would force GO to electrify any service that would use the tunnel thereby pushing forward a project they don’t seem to want to undertake quickly, and (b) Toronto would go through the massive upheaval of tunnel and station construction for a line that may be of little local benefit.
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Steve wrote about a GO Transit tunnel as a DRL option:
Isn’t it amazing that suburban boneheads oppose “Downtown” Relief because those downtowners have too much rapid transit already, while downtown boneheads oppose “Downtown” Relief because a line would be of little local benefit.
It’s this kind of thinking that has a certain brand of almond-based milk create an advertisement making fun of a guy who won’t try a taste of the product because he doesn’t know how it will taste.
Steve: I didn’t explain my thoughts too clearly, I suspect.
A major problem right now is that various advocates are projecting every imaginable function on whatever the DRL will become. To some, it’s an opportunity to improve GO Transit for travellers from the outer reaches of the city. For others, it is a way to get another local rapid transit line within Toronto so that they won’t have to endure the King and Queen cars any more. For still others, it’s a way to redress the perceived slights against various less well-off suburbs.
The DRL (or whatever) cannot possibly be all of these things. Moreover, the more technologically complex we make it, the less likely it is to be built soon, if ever. “Soon” is a very important word in this whole process.
The only reason GO was considering a tunnel was as a way to maintain downtown distribution while shifting traffic from some of its lines away from Union Station. This can be done more easily in other ways, and the GO tunnel has more or less fallen off the table. A DRL connecting with a “Union West” station at Spadina/Bathurst could provide distribution for the Weston corridor services as well as other benefits. A GO tunnel would be of little use to local riders and would soak up every penny of GO capital spending for years.
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IIRC, the traffic pattern of the core being the largest destination but not the majority of people’s destinations is shared across the city.
I really wish somebody would do a study like this for Rexdale. The needs of Northern Etobicoke get less transit discussion than Whitby.
If we are to truly begin to build a network, we need to know what people in every part of the net are doing.
Steve: This is a basic problem with “The Big Move” because it is very downtown centric. There is a superficial improvement in numbers carried by transit for the region, but a great deal of this comes from travel to and from central Toronto. Claims that TBM will produce widespread reduction in congestion and improvement in overall travel ignore the fact that much existing and future demand does not lie along the corridors where most of the new service will operate.
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Thanks for posting these charts Steve. To clarify, is this a study of TTC users within the two Planning districts and their destination or is it a study of residents within the Planning district and how they travel on a typical day?
Steve: It is a study of all travel regardless of mode.
Another reader has offered to mine the 2011 survey for updated information, and I hope to publish more detailed numbers here when I get them.
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An interesting set of diagrams, but it is not clear if the stats apply only to trips presently made by transit, or all trips (transit + cars). If the latter, then it should be noted that some car-based trips cannot be substituted by subway or LRT in any case. Amongst the trips that can be shifted to transit, the percentage of downtown-bound and westbound trips is likely higher.
On the first page, the authors stated that “LRT provides a much better backbone for comprehensive transit service”, and do not explicitly say what other option(s) they are comparing to LRT.
Steve: The comparison is between a single subway line and a network of LRT lines. I will update the article with the map the comment refers to. The point is that there is a lot of demand that does not lie along a single, downtown focused corridor, but rather among many areas.
Their data show that there is more demand in the SRT – Danforth corridor compared to the Sheppard corridor, and hence a focus on Sheppard subway would be an inferior option. However, those data do not help to choose between the Danforth subway extension and the LRT in the same corridor; from the perspective of their coarse travel grid, both options should work equally well.
Steve: This is a general problem with a lot of travel study information. It is on too coarse a level to be able to fine tune between options. A related issue is that the addition of a new line can have a considerable influence on trips, but at a granularity some models don’t pick up.
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Given that downtown has seen an increase in jobs of over 30,000 sonce 2007 while Scarborough only 2,000 will be interesting to see the changes in travel destinations from the 2011 results. One comment about GO is that it is ideal for travellers who can walk to or drive to a station and work within a 15 minute walk from Union. Given Scarborugh’s young population a good portion of those trips would be to school. Ryerson and George Brown would be on the fringes of walkability and UofT would be too far. The GO corridor (LSE) does not provide a good alternate option for people coming downtown north of Dundas or west of Spadina without having to transfer to the TTC at an additional cost. The only transfer option being studied between the two services is for people who live in Liberty Village, an area many consider to be part of downtown.
Steve: I think that the Liberty Village study is very misguided, but it’s a political decision. You point out the most basic problem: the lack of fare integration (or a reasonable GO fare for short trips) which makes a GO+TTC option prohibitively expensive even though it might be better for many trips. Metrolinx is waking up to this problem, but sadly the lack of reasonable GO alternatives for years has created a mindset where GO isn’t seen as part of “Toronto’s” network by most riders. This puts all the emphasis on subways even if they only serve part of the demand.
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All the proposed LRT lines would be useless for the vast majority of the trips within Scarborough. If a lot of trips are from one part of Scarborough to another then surely they would be using the bus system because neither the “Transit City” lines or an extended Sheppard subway would serve travel within Scarborough very well. Since Scarborough has only a handful of major employment areas (Scarborough Centre, Centennial College, Markham/Sheppard, UTSC) I think that most employment in Scarborough is scattered all over the place in various industrial and commercial areas. Also the large amount of traffic between Markham and Scarborough is noticeable; it seems like increasing the number of north-south bus routes that go north of Steeles and getting rid of the extra fare is needed to serve this traffic.
In terms of the criticism of the Sheppard subway I think there are several problems with this analysis. The vast majority of condo development in Scarborough is along Sheppard or near STC and much of it was built after 2006. For people who live in that area, the Sheppard subway is probably the most logical way of getting downtown with one transfer; the Yonge line is overcrowded but building a Don Mills subway would fix that problem. This is no different from the Bloor-Danforth line which has roughly the same amount of employment (but far less new residential development) as an extended Sheppard subway would have but has high ridership due to transfers to the Yonge line. The Sheppard subway would also be serving people from Markham and Durham Region via bus transfers.
I feel that the North York Centre area has a significant potential for more growth in office space, because it has a low vacancy rate; its low growth was caused by raising commercial tax rates in the 1990s. There is not much development along Sheppard east of Kennedy except at Markham (where the extended SRT was originally intended to go) so there is little advantage of having LRT east of Kennedy, while there is a huge disadvantage of putting LRT and subway on the same road and forcing a transfer at Don Mills, and there is a reason that an arrangement like the Sheppard LRT is basically unheard of in other cities.
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One thing that surprises me with these numbers is how few transit trips there are between the former Toronto boroughs. The Sheppard subway was originally designed to link North York City Centre to Scarborough Town centre yet only 2-3% of the total trips follow this path. Perhaps it’s just as well that the line was never completed.
It looks like most Scarborough TTC users do one of the following:
1. Live, work/study, and shop locally in their own district. Eminently sensible if you can manage it.
2. Live in Scarboroough but work/study downtown. This is the classic suburban bedroom community.
3. Live in Scarborough but work north of the city in one of the many new office and industrial parks in York region.
The only group I can really see benefitting from the Scarborough subway are the downtown commuters. But enhanced GO train services would be even better.
Meanwhile, local commuters would be better served by an LRT network and most importantly, better bus service. I can’t comment on commuters to York region but I suspect better integration with the York regional transit system would be of most benefit to them.
Steve: For clarity, the numbers are for all trips, not just transit trips.
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This leads to a couple more questions. The data doesn’t total 100%. Any reason why? (Is it because the balance of respondents didn’t move at all?) Do you have information on how the study was conducted and the reliability of the data collected (ie. what is the margin of error). Who was included or excluded in the study (is this limited to a certain age group? Are students and seniors included?). How are these numbers extrapolated into rides? (ie. Is it possible that of the 36% of trips made within PD16, 90% were done by car as Dad drove the kids to school and did some shopping and 90% of the trips made to the core were done on the TTC?)
While this is very interesting data and it might lead one to conclude an SRT will be fine, it needs more context.
Steve: I agree, and am awaiting 2011 data from another reader to flesh out these questions. The TTS does include student trips as these are an important component of overall travel. However, students do not all make their trips during the AM peak, and so some of their trips will not appear in the peak period numbers, only in the all-day trips.
The TTS is the basis for much of the planning work that is done in the GTHA because it is supposed to capture all travel demands on a consistent basis at a point in time.
Thanks for pointing out the fact that the numbers don’t add to 100%. I will chase this with the author.
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And what exactly is the downside of electrification? Less pollution? Less operating costs? Less noise? I thought that you always condemned GO for dragging their feet on electrification but I guess that was more rhetoric than substance.
Steve: You didn’t read the whole comment, did you. Electrification is a project GO doesn’t want to undertake, and moreover it will involve negotiations with the railways who own some of the affected track. Making this a pre-requisite of any new project will guarantee that it takes longer to implement, and the idea is supposed to be relief soon.
I have just about as much use for your rhetoric as you do for mine.
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When you have limited options to commute in a reasonable time to anywhere outside of Scarborough where would you expect Scarborough Citizens to go?
It like putting a cat in a shoe box and saying that since it only travels to the walls of the box it doesn’t need more space. That’s great planning.
Steve: Apparently vast numbers of Scarborough citizens travel to other places in the GTHA. The problem is that you have your heart set on a subway extension as the ONLY way to deal with the perceived shortcomings in Scarborough transit.
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I noticed that the numbers did not add up to 100% as well. I assumed that +/-20% of the people got on transit – made a few transfers – and then got off that the exact same stop they got on at. That’s the problem with the Metropass – people clog up space on transit, even at peak, just to ride around to meet people or enjoy the view.
Steve: If only it were not for those pesky riders taking up space on convenient, frequent transit services, we would have no problems at all.
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Scarborough councillors have specifically blocked condo development along Sheppard except for one small stretch yet to be built around Warden (which is all commercial so voters are not really affected). The significant high rise condo development has been along Sheppard East in North York (due to the highway).
BTW, the condos being built along Sheppard west of Bathurst are 6-10 story only – mid rise condos. And they are not selling, even with close proximity to the Allen and the Spadina line. Commercial space underneath those condos struggle.
There simply isn’t the demand along the length of Sheppard, including people feeding into it, both east and west of Yonge, for anything more then an LRT. Building a subway extension because we already have made the mistake of building a stubway is a waste of money.
As for North York Centre growing in terms of office space used, that is unlikely. The buildings going in from Finch to the 401 are all condo and retail.
When you can get new modern office space in the south core, for example, which can draw people from a wider part of the GTA, why go to North York for 1990’s era space?
The people who go to work in North York do so across the breadth of that community in commercial space pockets from Weston to Don Mills. There are some buildings in the North York Centre area. But, more people work outside that area but in North York. Just like in Scarborough.
The vision of North York or Scarborough Centres being massive commercial hubs is truly finished.
Time to build transit to help people go where they want to go – i.e. a grid that fiscally fits rather then a few big expensive lines that are not used enough to justify their existance.
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The problem is mainly money. The cost of electrification is very high and it would render all those nice new locomotives obsolete as well as a lot of rolling stock if they were to do the smart thing and use EMUs instead of locomotive hauled coaches.
IIRC GO/Metrolinx has been paying to have the clearances increased on all bridges and signal gantries along lines that GO uses on CN and CP as they were being upgraded or replaced. I believe the reason CN and CP won’t allow electrification over their lines around Montreal is lack of clearance for overhead would restrict their ability to run tri-level auto racks and double stack container trains.
A tunnel that has clearances for a GO train would need a minimum height above the rails of 22 feet plus what ever extra is needed for overhead. This would result in a tunnel with a diameter of over 25 feet. Two of these down a street like Wellington, Richmond or Adelaide would take out a lot underground infrastructure. Also when you have to excavate a 1000 to 1100 foot long station it takes up a lot of real estate as well as disrupting the street for a couple of blocks. Since these trains run on tracks that sometimes accommodate freight trains, all the tracks they run on must accommodate freight trains just in case CN wants to run a freight through the tunnels, dumb rule from Transport Canada.
If Metrolinx is going to build a tunnel they should do so for corridors that they can have officially abandoned as possible freight lines or can get permission to have temporal separation as happens with the O-train in Ottawa. This would allow tighter clearances and much lighter equipment.
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Interesting comparison with the EA, in which 54% of SRT projected 2031 ridership would be bound for downtown. Both the EA and the UofT numbers can be representative since they are measuring different phenomena, but the “contrast” (term used loosely as it technically isn’t a true contrast) stands out.
Steve: The distinction, of course, is that the EA only considered riders on the SRT, not travel originating in Scarborough generally in all modes and to all destinations.
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I have lived in Guildwood Village for the last 25 years, and my work commutes have included GO transit to downtown, auto on the 401 to Pearson Airport, auto on Lawrence to Don Mills, and currently bus/subway to North York Centre. Scarborough is a spread out community with a good wide road network, so car travel is fairly easy, and thus a popular mode of travel. Most of the main arterial roads are wide enough that surface LRT lines are a feasible way to improve the transit grid (unlike the downtown network where the roads are too narrow).
The extension of the Scarborough Subway will probably have zero impact on ridership, but a big impact on cost. The current SRT extension takes commuters to STC quickly, and conversion to a subway will be a minor improvement only, at a cost of a few extra billion dollars. When the people who use the SRT to travel to STC find out that the subway will no longer take them to STC, that will probably cause outrage, requiring a change in alignment and adding a few more hundreds of millions to the cost.
The big problem that I see is the overcrowding on the existing network. With one east-west line and one north-south line, a problem at Bloor and Yonge breaks everything apart. Expanding the grid is more important than extending the existing lines and adding more riders to the overloaded grid. The Eglinton LRT is a good first start, adding a second east-west line. The Sheppard and Finch LRT lines will add a third east-west line. The bus lines would be better able to fill in the grid with shorter runs to rail lines.
For those who feel that subways will be “painless”, I invite them to view what is happening along Eglinton over the next decade. The dream of putting subway lines everywhere should be tempered with a realistic understanding of the pain during the construction, and the incredible costs. Perhaps a surface train line down a wide road corridor will look far more attractive.
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Interesting to note however, that over 85% of trips made on the SRT are to and from Kennedy station presumably to connect to the B-D subway to make regional trips.
The best way to serve the 30% or so of local trips is likely by improved bus service and maybe an LRT on Sheppard to serve local trips on that street. The SRT however distinctly does not serve local trips, and neither would its LRT replacement. This data is good at disproving the Sheppard subway which is much more a local trip corridor and only a small amount of trips to NYCC, but does little to disprove the Scarborough subway which serves a corridor that is very busy and serves largely regional trips. Local trips are very different in their nature than regional trips, and are often better dealt with using a mix of better bus service and improved active transportation options (As well as an inevitable high automobile use rate given Scarboroughs built form) than advocating for building low use LRTs on every arterial road in the city.
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Such restrictions are likely to be overturned by the OMB and tall condominiums will get built anyway. Toronto city council is notoriously anti-development and imposes this sort of restriction all the time, but the OMB tends to rule in favour of developers. Sheppard Avenue is obviously a desirable area for condo developers (as is obvious when you look at Sheppard west of the 404).
This is misleading. My guess is that about the same number are going to Bloor/Yonge, not surprising given that the amount of office space there is similar to that in North York Centre (while the southern part of downtown is much larger). Users of both Bloor-Danforth and Sheppard are mostly transferring to the Yonge line to go south, yet the Bloor-Danforth and SRT have no shortage of riders. The Yonge line is overcrowded, but that is a separate problem. The Sheppard subway has more development along it than the McCowan Road subway route, plus it has the Consumers Road office park, so I think that it is the superior of the two routes.
Steve: Actually, the Bloor-Yonge area (and points immediately west) also has the University of Toronto campus which has no equivalent in North York.
In any case, I cannot see how the “Transit City” network would be very useful for most of the trips going from one part of Scarborough to another. Most of Scarborough’s jobs are spread out all over the place and are nowhere near the proposed LRT routes. The only thing that would be useful for most of those trips would be improved bus service, and particularly between Markham and Scarborough. In any case, my suspicion is that if residents in Scarborough mostly work in Scarborough, it is because of poor transportation infrastructure and traffic congestion on the 401.
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I would say it is a dumb rule only because there would still be plenty of non-tunnel ways to get past Union Station.
However, running a freight through what would seem a passenger-only station is not totally unheard of. A few years back, I was in Oslo and needed to catch a commuter train from downtown to where I was staying. The nearest commuter rail station to where I was downtown was Nationaltheatret, a four-track underground station that had more of the feel of a subway station than a commuter rail station. It is actually located UNDER the Nationaltheatret metro (T-banen) station. While waiting for my train, a long freight passed through the station.
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It would certainly be better then a 3 stop subway likewise nowhere near where people take transit.
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And how does a 3 stop subway address this issue?
A LRT network with less stops than a local bus route is surely more attractive to riders traveling within Scarborough.
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But it will not involve negotiations with the railways since all of the new tracks for the GO Transit DRL will be GO owned. If GO decides to connect that line with Lakeshore East and/or Stouffville lines; then those two are already completely GO owned. A GO Transit DRL will provide relief sooner than a DRL subway and it will also be faster than a subway. Those who will outright reject a GO Transit based DRL are more interested in a brand new state of the art 21st century subway line in their own backyard rather than any relief on the Yonge Line. A GO DRL has a natural starting point at Main Station. GO also completely owns the Barrie Line and so a GO DRL can also connect to that line without requiring any negotiations with the private railways with regards to electrification. A GO DRL will also set a good precedent for electrification throughout the country thereby improving our health and environment. A GO DRL can be built much faster and much cheaper and will also have a much high average speed (true rapid transit). I am willing to put my money on a GO based DRL but I am not convinced about the DRL having to be a subway at any cost (those people who say it has to be a subway just want a pet subway and are not interested in any relief).
Steve: You have an argument worth listening to about GO improvements, but you completely cock it up with references to people wanting a “subway line in their own backyard” and a “pet subway”. It is amusing to note that if a rapid transit line were built on the Stouffville corridor, it would decimate the claimed demand for another “pet subway” that is more appropriately the subject of your scorn.
By the way, in case you have not been paying attention, the western leg of a “GO DRL” that has been talked about at some length uses the Weston corridor, not the Barrie line. GO does not own that corridor beyond Halwest.
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Every time I now hear someone say that, I can’t help but wonder if that person was even in the country during this past winter.
The “natural starting point” for a GO relief line for the eastern part of the city is Kennedy or Guildwood if the Scarborough subway extension gets rerouted through Eglinton GO station and the transit connections at Guildwood are significantly improved from their current joke status.
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What I find interesting about an analysis of Scarborough travel patterns are the people traveling from Scarborough north to York Region and east to Durham Region. Neither a subway nor light rail is planned to serve these areas, which I expect will develop even more in the future. It seems like we should also be considering how to serve GO Stations with passengers who desire to go in the off-peak direction (i.e. north to Markham in the morning). Of course, not only are there no trains to Markham currently in the morning, GO Buses to Markham in the morning do not stop at the corresponding GO stations in the city of Toronto – but the proper question to ask when we are planning these lines is not what the demand is now, but what will the demand be in 30 years?
One thing I don’t see a lot of (unless I missed it) when discussing what capacity a line connecting Kennedy with STC needs is the 131E bus. I thought I remember the reason why the 131E bus operates to Kennedy Station is that the SRT was becoming too overcrowded. While it obviously does not have the capacity of any kind of light rail line, it is worth remembering what happens when more people are taking your new line than you expected.
Steve: The 131E exists not because riders were “unexpected”, but because the cost of additional RT cars was prohibitively high. That’s what happens when you place your bets on an orphaned technology.
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Steve I find it shocking that a LRT /BRT network designed to meet the demand based on known travel patterns should appear better suited to meet it than a politically motivated subway. How can this be?
I think it is fairly clear that this type of information in combination with ridership data is a reasonable way of developing transit. I would argue that perhaps a hard look at how GO in the outer part of this area should be connected to transit would be a worthwhile discussion, not subway instead of GO for corebound or subway instead of LRT for 3-10k riders per hour peak.
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But CN still retains the right to run freight trains on any of those lines when they need to; therefore those lines must meet all of the Transport Canada requirements for a main line railway capable of handling 12,000 foot long freight trains. This means that your minimum headway is about every 10 minutes and your minimum block length is about 6 miles. Unless Metrolinx can get Transport Canada to change its regulations a GO DRL is a non-starter. Also Union Station cannot handle the passenger volumes required to be useful.
A further problem is that GO’s lines are too far east to be useful, but aside from that your plan is useless as a DRL. GO cannot handle the numbers necessary to be of any use.
The Wynne government announced a $29 billion dollar plan to upgrade transit in Ontario over 10 years, only half of that for the GTHA. That amounts to about $2.9 billion per year, a nice amount but just barely adequate. It will be nice to see a 15 minute headway on all GO lines.
Steve: Wynne also said that GO would electrify “all the lines we own”. As things stand, that rules out the KW line beyond Halwest, the Milton line and the Lake Shore West past Burlington. There is talk of buying part of the KW line, and this also ties in with schemes for a “high speed rail” link to London on the same corridor, but the problem of CN traffic between Bramalea and Georgetown will not go away. As for a GO DRL, there will be some benefit from better GO service, but it will not eliminate the need for more subway capacity into the core in the future. A big problem here is that people want to make the GO lines do double duty both to handle long-haul demand from the 905 and outer 416 thereby keeping it off of the subway, but then they turn around and talk about local service on the inner end of the same corridors. There are only so many trains/hour and so many passengers these lines can carry without major changes in operating procedure and in capacity at Union.
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No the subway is just the start. It should be the backbone to connect to the heart of Toronto. The LRT and BRT’s & buses should move citizens around the City connect to other areas in the 905.
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Joe based on your past commentary, where it is clear that this means subway to outer end of Scarborough and thus presumably NW Etobicoke, the problem with this approach is that:
1. Subway does not have capacity to run out to the 4 corners of the 416. It will divert trips onto the subway that would be better sent another route (current bus subway ride from Guildwood to NYCC or Consumers road and Sheppard area). If you run the subway up Kipling to the Airport, people who want to get to North York will do so via Yonge and Bloor.
2. There is not enough money allocated to do this, nor can there reasonably be.
3. If LRT is used for the area of the 905, not within 416 it will leave very long bus runs in city traffic for 416 riders, that will be painfully slow, and mean that should be riders will drive. If funds are expended extending subway they will not be there for LRT & BRT.
4. Even if the capital funding was available, while the tunnel portion of a subway lasts a long time it requires maintenance. The maintenance costs of subway being used where not required will effectively add too much unsupportable costs.
Personally, if I was on a line with 3-4.5k demand I would rather have a single car LRT to my closest stop than a subway, only because then a vehicle will come by every 2-3 minutes. I would not want to be on the thin end of a lot of short turns. Even subway frequency is based on load. This will likely be true east of Kennedy.
I agree that the subway is a back bone, however, LRT&BRTs would be better used to both route traffic away from it where it is not appropriate, and to move people to it where it is appropriate. They must be designed so that they are not subject to the vagaries of traffic, but move quickly, and are seen to do so. People watching a LRT trains sweep past them going to where they are destined will want to use them.
Subway needs to be reserved for use as a backbone, which means areas that will normally be subject to heavy loads that are most appropriately routed that way.
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Very true, Goderich and Exeter will not improve the track on the line west of Georgetown beyond 50 mph since their freights do not need the higher speed. They do not want to get stuck with the increased maintenance cost of a higher speed line.
If they do run a 15 minute electrified service on “the lines we own” then they should go for EMUs which accelerate faster and will allow for better equipment utilization. Metrolinx has to apply for exemption to run lighter weight equipment and to get rid of the archaic brake test rules. If they implement ATO or Positive Train Control then they should be able run more frequent service and add and subtract cars more easily. They also need to get a set of wide platforms at Union with wider stairs to load and unload rapidly.
GO could interline Stouffville and Barrie as there are almost no freights on those lines since they dead end. These two lines at least should be run with non FRA/TC compliant equipment on shorter headways. They could provide some extra capacity within the 416, especially if GO would run some of the outer trains express and send a local two minutes behind them to pickup in 416. This would not eliminate the need for A DRL but would provide better service to Scarborough.
It will be interesting to see how much thought and research has gone into Wynne’s announcement. It will also be interesting to hear the replies from the opposition, especially Hudak.
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I think the biggest problem with subway is that the price is so stupendously high that many people can’t understand just how expensive it is. As a result we get people casually suggesting that subways should be built here and there or sometimes all over the place, blithely unaware that they’ve just spent more money on a still-inadequate plan than has ever been proposed to be spent on LRTs.
I actually think the idea of having a subway line end at an LRT line, with another LRT line starting at that point effectively continuing the subway, is pretty sensible. A high-capacity subway line can split up into three directions of LRT. At one point there was a realistic possibility of this happening with the Sheppard subway ending at Don Mills, the Don Mills subway ending at Eglinton, and the Danforth subway ending at Kennedy.
Steve: People seem to think that ending a subway with a bus terminal from which routes radiate is a wonderful concept, but when one says “LRT”, then it’s a waste of money unless the subway continues ad infinitum.
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I support subways whether it be in Scarborough, Downtown, or Richmond Hill. However, what I do not support is stops that are so close together that delay the construction, increase the costs, and slow everyone down forever just because some lazy people couldn’t walk for 5 minutes. I am sure that some TIFF junkies will demand a DRL subway stop on John and King as it is too difficult to walk from University or Spadina. If you want cheap rapid transit that is built 5 years sooner, then keep the stops far apart.
Steve: The sooner people stop making gratuitous comments about the motives of people regarding the DRL, the sooner I will start taking these comments seriously. Yes, there is a point to be made about stop spacing versus trip times, although the question then becomes whether the purpose of any line is to carry people very long distances, or to serve more locally oriented trips.
When you take so slagging “Tiff junkies”, you just add a layer of complete crap to your position and it takes a great deal of restraint for me not to simply click on the “Trash” button in the comment editor.
FYI there are a lot of people who come from outside downtown to Tiff, and the annual festival helps make Toronto a major centre of the movie industry. People who work in that industry live all over the GTA and benefit from Tiff’s existence.
There is a perfectly good subway stop at King & University, and if the DRL goes along Wellington, it would also stop at St. Andrew, not John Street.
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I guess the real issue with that is whether the Bombardier ALP-46 and the ALP-45DP have enough common parts that GO transit can justify having two types of locomotives to handle both the fully and partially electrified lines respectively.
The Milton line is the interesting question with that though since a dual-mode locomotive would be of little value on it considering how little of the line would be electrified. This then leads to the question of whether it would be worthwhile to have dedicated locomotives for only one line.
Steve: The more practical approach would be to use electric equipment on short turns where appropriate on lines that are not fully electrified and diesels beyond. Dual mode locos are expensive and heavy, and the whole question must be looked at in the context of which lines may be acquired/electrified and when.
Given that this is a campaign promise, not a detailed implementation plan, let’s wait a bit before we start to decide what colours we will choose for seat fabric on the new cars.
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Isaac I think you have a point. Toronto needs to have a simple affordable plan that it supports with as near a single voice as can be achieved. Not asking for the moon and having a plan would make getting support from upper tiers of government easier, especially the plan is supported not by “vision” and ego but data.
A notional “transit plan”, not in my mind overly grand, and thus financially doable with senior government support.
1 – The complete Sheppard East LRT, and Scarborough Malvern LRT. This money is in effect already allocated. Providing additional BRT links from the STC to Markham & Pickering would make the STC a more attractive location to work and hence locate offices at. These BRT links, would need to be seen as dependent on GO in CPR or the Don Mills subway.
2 – Don Mills subway from Don Mills and Eglinton to the Core or even the CNE. The CNE could then be used, if required, as a transfer location for GO Lakeshore, a Waterfront West LRT, and bus & streetcar. Stations required at start of service are the intercepts of: the Cross-town LRT, the Bloor-Danforth subway, the eastern Queen/King Street car lines, and the YUS subway. Stops should also include: Flemingdon Park, Thorcliffe Park, the Market, then possibly Liberty Village and CNE.
3 – The Cross-town LRT extension to the airport. Make sure that it links with MiWay properly, and to surface hub(s) that provides good service for the employment concentrated at and around the airport.
4 – Finch West LRT from the Airport and Cross-Town LRT to at least the Spadina Line including a proper linkage to the Cross-town and the same surface hub idea.
5 – The Don Mills LRT from Don Mills & Eglinton to Steeles as an express LRT (stops matching subway) so it maintains a high speed. Allow buses in the ROW to pick up local traffic and improve local service. This service along with the other would make Don Mills more attractive.
6- Yonge Line extension to Steeles to allow for additional terminus capacity and make 36+ trains per hour possible to accommodate ridership growth and projects from beyond Toronto.
7 – Waterfront East LRT – as far as end of Lakeshore / Woodbine. Also extend Broadview car as intercept. Allowing for new projects to and beyond the Don.
8 – Waterfront West LRT. Browns Line or West Mall to the southern core. Support existing and ongoing intensification at and close to the Lakeshore both close to the core and beyond the Humber. There are a number of issues here including ROW width at a couple of locations, and at the turning capacity at the downtown terminus but I think most could be overcome.
I am sure that Steve has a better and more considered list, these projects are not my ideas, but I think this represents an achievable and required group of projects, in what I think is a reasonable order. This is would represent building only what is really required now or before 2030 to keep the city moving.
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Bombardier’s ALP-45DP costs $13 million Canadian which makes it the world’s most expensive locomotive. Also in Diesel mode it can only haul 8 cars, not 12. Why GO, or any sane agency, would want to buy these things is beyond comprehension. If GO is to electrify and have a system that is useful it MUST use electric multiple units for the majority of its basic service as these have much better acceleration. Locomotive hauled coaches, whether diesel or electric, are ok for trains that have a large express component. My fear is that the Liberals are talking before engaging their brain, but that is not uncommon for politicians.
Steve: There is a big problem because the advice they are getting from consultants (notably through Neptis and the Schabas report which I will write about soon) contains some quite salient points about Metrolinx cock-ups and the shortcomings of the electrification study. However, Schabas doesn’t get it all correct either as we saw in his proposal for a Danforth Station short turn, among other things.
Metrolinx has shot itself in the foot by providing poor advice for years. This is a perfect setup for “my experts know more than your experts” and the Minister draws the map to his liking.
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Because if you are already an operator of the ALP-46 like NJ Transit, the higher purchasing price and the increased operating costs are less of a concern compared to the costs associated with the overhead. Now, since GO Transit is already studying the ALP-46 for electrification, it’s logical that they would also study the ALP-45DP as an option to get around the sections that they can’t electrify.
Ultimately though, I do agree that dual mode locomotives are not that great an option when things as simple as locomotive swapping, operating diesels on run through service, or even just cross platform transfers are good enough in most cases.
As for the EMU issue, that will depend on the replace/rebuild cycle of the current car fleet and how it syncs up with the completion of the electrification of the first line(s).
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