The City of Toronto Planning Department will hold four public meetings regarding their Regional Relief study now in progress.
The meetings will be held between 7:00 and 9:00 pm:
- Tuesday, March 3, 2015 at Calvary Church, 746 Pape Avenue (Pape Station)
- Thursday, March 5, 2015 at Riverdale Collegiate, 1094 Gerrard Street East at Jones (506 Carlton car of 83 Jones bus)
- Monday, March 9, 2015 at St. Lawrence Hall, 157 King Street East at Jarvis (504 King car)
- Thursday, March 12, 2015 at Christ Church Deer Park, 1570 Yonge Street (St. Clair Station)
The focus of the meetings will be station locations and evaluation criteria.
Steve Munro 
P.S. I would also note that how these various costs and risks are balanced depends on the business and industry. Some will be quite happy to be in a high service area away from the core, as long as their is decent access to the core (need not be a subway) and good local services, and a wide variety of local housing for their staff or potential staff.
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I agree. My main objection to the existing transit plans is that they do not prioritize the need to accommodate a very flexible labor market, build economies of scale, or optimize the utilization of the immense human capital available in this city region. Even from the beginning the plans are designed to underperform.
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Well I suppose that depends on how you define “solution”. If you can find a way to make it appealing for a considerable amount of the population travelling from the east to transfer at Danforth/Main, then yes, that could alleviate pressure.
However, in addition to the substantial cost of that solution, it would constrain GO/Metrolinx’s efforts to utilize that corridor and would contribute to the next capacity crisis: Union. Then, when we reach the point that demand outstrips what that relief valve can provide (and it will), there’s pretty much nowhere to go to expand that solution, and we’re stuck building the DRL anyway which, through inflation, has become substantially more expensive.
If we build the DRL even just to Danforth, it offers more relief in the immediate term. It won’t overload Union (in fact, it might help divert passengers away from Union). And it can be extended to Eglinton or Sheppard in the east, and Dundas West or another Bloor station in the west, as needed. And it has the added benefit of providing additional local service.
This is going to be needed eventually. How many of us look back and wish the governments of the day had built more subways in the past? Let’s not be that same generation that papers over the cracks and passes the buck to the next generation.
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Here I have to say I agree. We need to accommodate a substantial improvement in flexibility of transit to match the location of jobs, and make more areas desirable, while also hugely increasing capacity into the core and the near core area. I really do think that Transit City + DRL east all the way to Eglinton, added to RER would make a huge difference. However, the rest of the region also needs to have service in order for this to truly work.
These services are needed to also help the basic service transit function better. Without the basic services, neither a hub and spoke or basic grid service can really serve the needs. I favor a basic underlay of relatively destination neutral transit, but the capacity to serve major destinations has to be there. Toronto, and its neighbors would be well served by choosing to get moving and taking the lead, and thereby retaking control of its transit network. All of Transit City was required 10 years ago. Now it and a DRL are required for the 416, now, not with construction dragging out over the next couple of decades. The requirement really does run to a couple of billion a year inside the 416.
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The Downtown Relief Line is an opportunity that can kill many birds with one stone, namely:
1) relieve crowding on the Yonge Line at the Yonge/Bloor stations
2) relieve streetcar shortage
3) improve traffic flow
4) save money by voiding the need for 60 additional streetcars – money which can be used to build the said DRL
5) improve service frequency on all of the remaining streetcar routes thereby also relieving streetcar crowding
By taking the line underneath Broadview and on either Queen/King and then eventually up Roncesvalles – the streetcar on those routes can be replaced with much fewer buses (surface demand having been reduced by the DRL) and those streetcars available on those routes can then be moved to the remaining streetcar routes, reducing headways, and reducing crowding. Fewer buses replacing many streetcars on DRL streets will also mean better traffic flow and so the DRL as proposed in my plan can win support from suburban areas as well meaning the DRL as proposed in my comment can be a win not just for Downtowners but also for everyone else. It is time to think of DRL as beyond just providing relief to the Yonge Line and Yonge/Bloor stations when it can provide relief (subject to a clever route selection as I propose) to streetcar riders, drivers, and taxpayers (by saving hundreds of millions on voiding the need for 60 additional new streetcars) as well.
Steve: I really get tired of people trying to turn the DRL into a way to reduce the size of the streetcar system. As we know, underground construction is very expensive, and it also reduces the number of stops serving neighbourhoods. It it really worthwhile to spend at least $600m to get from Queen to Bloor via Roncesvalles, and in the process have maybe one stop somewhere in between? Would Liberty Village be happy with only one stop that would be a long walk from large parts of the area no matter where you put it?
For the sake of argument, say that we don’t buy the 60 streetcars. That’s a capital cost including inflation of somewhere under $400m, or just over 1km of subway. Bad enough that we spend money on subways where LRT should be in the suburbs, but to demolish the fine-grained stop spacing on two major streetcar routes is madness, especially when the “DRL” you propose would not be a relief line for Bloor-Yonge at all, only a replacement for the King car. If you want to get rid of streetcars, don’t try to make a bad subway proposal do your dirty work for you.
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Boy, it sure is a slow news day! The front page headline of today’s Toronto Star is about a hole in the ground (yawn!), and the front page also deals with red-haired kids (yawn!), and about a picture of a moose (yawn!).
But, flip over to the local news, it’s all transit, transit, and more transit! Yipee!
One article that electrification of the UPX can go ahead without an EA, another about mismanagement in the TTC’s non-revenue fleet, another article about Bombardier to speed up delivery of the new streetcars, and most relevant, findings of a poll.
The poll question was, which transit project should be the city’s most urgent priority?
The Downtown Relief Line received the most support at 29%, the Scarborough subway extension 19%, Eglinton Crosstown 12%, SmartTrack 11%, UPX 8%, Finch LRT 5%, don’t know/other 16% = 100%.
The article says that the bulk of the SSE support was among Scarborough residents and Doug Ford voters.
My observations are these:
First, that the Star has reverted back to calling the Relief Line as the “Downtown Relief Line” and “DRL”;
Second, the poll choices were a mix of projects already under construction (UPX is opening in a few weeks) and projects still on paper. Oddly, the Downsview subway extension was not mentioned, unless it was buried with “Other”. Also not mentioned was the Sheppard LRT.
Steve: I suspect that the list of options was what people were offered in the poll, not the ones they pulled out of the air in an unprompted question.
Out of curiosity, I considered only the four transit projects mentioned which are not under construction: in that case, support by project is DRL 45%, SSE 30%, ST 17%, and FLRT 8% = 100%.
This gives a clearer picture of what Torontonians consider transit priority.
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Your post highlights the central problems that I have been discussing: first, the need to build economic competitiveness through economies of scale; second, the need to ensure equality of opportunity.
There are two main schools of thought. The first school of thought addresses the issue of equality of opportunity. This is largely defined by the Smart Track proposal, which is largely based on the findings of the Neptis Foundation, Toronto Board of Trade, and Karl Junkin’s GO transit study. The second school of thought is based on building economies of scale, which can be defined by the TTC’s historic Queen St. subway study illustrated recently by Lawrence Solomon op-ed piece in the National Post, and the Scarborough subway.
Each approach has deficiencies however when harmonized together into one line they negate the deficiencies and create significant synergy. The line can be designed to spur significant growth and economic activity making the line profitable, while at the same time providing equal access to people across the city.
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Josh Matlow is a very strong supporter of the relief line but as I have I posed before, the recent trend seems to be that elections get politicians talking about transit but Liberal cabinet minister champions get subways built. Brad Duguid in Scarborough, Greg Sorbara in Vaughan. I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if the Yonge extension becomes part of the 2018 election campaign since the Liberals want to win Thornhill and the MPP for Richmond Hill is still a cabinet minister.
Kathleen Wynne would be the ideal champion for a DRL since a future extension across the Don Valley would run in her constituency. The fact that she is Premier should not be relevant … she’s a cabinet minister and the trend is what it is. Indeed, the last Premier who didn’t get a major infrastructure project built in his constituency was Bob Rae … and that is only because the Eglinton West subway (through York South-Weston) was filled in by his replacement.
Cheers, Moaz
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By the way, a little info from tonight’s RMRA meeting, where the director of electrification for Metrolinx spoke:
1. Metrolinx has completed the TPAP for electrification of the Union Pearson Express. Yesterday Glen Murray (Minister of the Environment & Climate Change) rejected a request for an Individual EA for the Hydro substation.
2. As of now the project is unfunded but Metrolinx is proceeding on the assumption of future funding.
3. Metrolinx and the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change will work to streamline the electrification EA process so there is only one step rather than two.
4. The design and engineering work for electrification of the Union Pearson Express should be completed by April 2015.
5. Metrolinx has issued and closed a tender for consultants who will advise Metrolinx for electrification over the next 10 years. The winner will likely be made public in April 2015.
6. The Maintenance Facility will be near the 401-Islington interchange.
7. There was no clear timeline given about when electrification will be completed but it will certainly be before 2024. There are many factors and potential pitfalls.
8. GO is looking to bring back Midday service on the Kitchener line out to Bramalea “soonish” (maybe by the summer).
9. GO will retrofit 10 locomotives to Tier 4 standards.
10. There will be additional trips on the Kitchener line (plus the mid day service) by the end of the year using these Tier 4 locomotives.
Questions about UPEx failing or being converted into a DRL West or the interiors refitted for higher passenger capacity were answered as appropriately as the speaker could.
Cheers, Moaz
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As an aside, as someone who has also made that walk several times, I thought that living in those apartments (I doubt they are condos) would be really great since you have the subway on the one side and the GO on the other. As for the a connection between the two, I question its utility. It’s not really worth it unless you live exactly on Danforth Avenue especially when, as you say, you wind up waiting for both trains. I’d suggest improving the connection to 506 and the other buses on Main street instead. Maybe even snake an adjacent route through Main street to increase the coverage. They could is put a crosswalk on the viaduct at the top of the steps and a car/bus stop on either side of the road. Better yet, they could also install stairs on the west side of Main street and connect them to the platform under the viaduct and do so for both platforms. An easy connection here instead of walking to Danforth would make it easier to get to East York or somewhere on Gerrard.
Steve: Once upon a time there were carstops on the bridge, and the east stairway down to what was originally a CN/Via station is still in place, but blocked off. However, making this a formal interchange would require more than simply reopening them for accessibility requirements, sidewalk space problems for waiting passengers and shelters, and the safety of a stop in a location where there is no traffic signal and visibility issues.
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I hate to sound like Liberal bias here, but the lost decades can be laid at the feet of Mike Harris and the OPC and to a lesser extent, Rob Ford. With Harris we had shovels in the ground on the Eglinton West subway before it was axed. Once we get rid of the OPC, we had years getting Transit City planned and funded, only to see Rob Ford come in and nix the works. Of course, he could only do that with the support of Council and the OLP, but both Harris and Ford come from the “cut spending, cut taxes” school of thought. Water under the bridge, but in my dream world, we’d have a mechanism where projects can’t be cancelled or swapped out without a public referendum.
From their unlabeled graphic, I’m assuming they will compare 6 north/south alignments and 4 east/west alignment. My guess is that they look at: Under the USRC to Union, under King, under Queen and under Dundas; and, under Parliament to Castle Frank, under Broadview, under nothing to Chester, under Pape, under Jones to Donlands, or under Greenwood. The answer they are looking for is Pape and King.
Steve: That graphic is not intended to convey the number of alignments under study. It is only to show that there are multiple ways to get from “A” to “B”. You completely missed several streets downtown, by the way, notably Wellington.
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That may be, however, both this and the Sheppard subway projects were mistakes, in terms of building something excessive. If the proposals had been based on the previous notion of a transitway in the form of BRT or LRT on Eglinton it would have been a large loss. However, subway here would have been expensive to operate. Based on my recollection of the ridership forecasts, this would not then had made sense as subway (network plans published pre 1990).
Toronto first needed to look harder at less expensive and capacious options than subway. I think if the Sheppard line and Eglinton lines had been done as LRT with tunnels near Yonge, it would have made sense to extend them. Toronto really needed to avoid the Davis mistake in Scarborough, and proceeded with the previously planned LRT network. As Steve has mentioned before the platform at Kipling speaks to interesting plans. LRT at either ends of the city before 1984, would have permitted a very different development.
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W.r.t to RER EA’s and Moaz’s update above, I wanted to share some info with everyone. For GO-RER, Metrolinx and the Ministry of the Environment have submitted a request for clarification and rules changes regarding the EA procedures to be followed for GO-RER. There is some ambiguity because while transit projects are covered under TPAP (ON Reg 231/08), Electricity Distribution is covered under a different regulation (116/01). It is posted on the EBR and the comment period is closing soon.
It seems like this will set a precedent going forward for all rapid transit projects, so they can adhere to the 6 month rapid EA timeframe set out in TPAP, instead of having to do that, and other ones under 116/01. Given Murray’s recent ruling on UpEx electrification (I.e. not requiring to do a Hydro EA), I think this will go through, which is a big milestone in speeding up the GO-RER rollout.
Random info yes, but just so happens it came up for me as an assignment in my Masters 🙂
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I believe they are only looking at connections to existing stations, so while it may run under Wellington it would hook to meet King or Union. I’ve taken a better look at the Terms of Reference, and noticed some interesting tidbits. They intend to hold a public naming contest “to better reflect the residents being served by the investment”. The Study is broken down into the traditional long list/short list, where the long list considers all the possible termini and alignments. Consistently, they use six options on Bloor and four options on Yonge.
Steve: No, actually, Wellington is one of the routes on the table because it threads its way well through downtown. The south end of King Station is only a short distance north of Wellington (think of where the stair for the Melinda Street exit comes out on the west side). St. Andrew lies astride King Street, but the south end of it is close to if not touching the north end of the parking garage under University that was built on top of the subway. This would make an easy connection between the two stations. There would definitely be no “hook” to meet Union because there is no room under Front Street for another subway line.
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Well, you can’t get everything you want and you have to be willing to compromise.
Steve: Sounds like “compromise” to you means that your plan is best and everyone else should just get in line. Sorry, but I don’t work that way.
400 million dollars is not a small amount of money and will be well worth it to save those. Already buses are replacing streetcars on several routes for at least half of this winter and half of last and it seems to be working just fine and so I say it will be very worthwhile to save those 400 million dollars and put them into the DRL (that’s 4 extra stops on the DRL at a cost of $100 million per stop and here you are complaining about lack of stops in the same reply of yours which I am not quoting all of).
Steve: The bigger reason there are so many buses on the streetcar routes is that the TTC does not have enough cars now that the entire system is actually scheduled to have streetcars on it. For years, there has always been a construction project somewhere, but now there isn’t. This is less about weather than about bad planning and deferred maintenance. Yes, $400m is a lot, but it will cost a bundle to carry the expected future demand on streetcar routes using buses. It’s not a straight “saving” you can plough into a few stations.
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Steve, a year ago you came up with a proposal for the ‘Don Mills Line’ with an east west routing on Eastern/Front/Wellington. Are you still supporting that?
To my mind one of the principle benefits of your plan was that it would leave both streetcars in service for the long years of construction. Is it not madness to even consider a line under King or Queen, which, when construction starts, would immediately shut down the streetcar.
The only other east west route that, to me, has any merit would be on the extended Harbour/Bremner.
Both Wellington and Bremner alignments would be easy walking to Union too.
Maybe a link to your year old proposal is appropriate.
Steve: Yes, I still support the Wellington alignment. It connects to areas east and west of downtown much better than going south of the rail corridor. A line on Bremner would be very difficult to build as that is all fill in the old lake bed. Also, linking Harbour to Bremner would be interesting, and both of them end — one at Jarvis (a proposed extension of Harbour) and one at Fort York.
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I quite agree, and I live along the Sheppard subway. However, the issue remains that we needed and still need something more along there, so now after 20 years we are finally building something more appropriate. The problem is that if we had an expensive, overbuilt subway, we’d now be building to fill the next highest need on the list.
As for the Scarborough subway, I’m in favour of a better choice, but I am wary of just spinning our wheels. We have until November 2019 and the next election. Harris proved that you need more to lose than just shovels in the ground. To that extend, if I were the OLP, I would make a big vehicle order with a 95% cancellation fee.
Very true, consider me convinced.
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Steve, would not a pedestrian tunnel not serve well? I can see it now, a tunnel below the YUS subway line, to connect Union Station with say 44 trains per hour with the DRL and another location further north in the PATH network.
Steve: The PATH network is already there. Why build a new tunnel to get from DRL stations to Union? Remember that most DRL users will not be making that transfer connection.
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The only reason would be that someone magically fit ST into Union along with all the rest, and subway was running at 33-34 trains per hour, you have so much foot traffic, that frankly the current PATH would be crazy busy.
Steve: When the brains trust that designed ST figures out how to run all those trains, and explains why people want to transfer from ST to the DRL (not to the existing YUS), then I would worry about PATH. Where are all the passengers travelling from/to that you foresee clogging up the PATH?
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Steve said:” When the brains trust that designed ST figures out how to run all those trains, and explains why people want to transfer from ST to the DRL (not to the existing YUS), then I would worry about PATH. Where are all the passengers travelling from/to that you foresee clogging up the PATH?”
Mostly coming north from Union, at what 60++ trains per hour (hahaha) the foot connection really would mostly just be one more way that they would not be packing the sidewalks.
Steve: But they will only be doing this if they want to transfer to the DRL. Why would 60++ trains/hour of people arriving at Union all want to get on the DRL? You are thinking as if there is no place else for them to go such as all those office towers, or the YUS.
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Actually, I was not thinking of the tunnel as a strictly transfer tunnel, but rather as an alternate walking path for which one exit would be a DRL station, another would be even further north. Effectively just one more inside walkway. I have visions of 2000 people per minute arriving at Union, 1500 of which are headed north, adding to and mixing with the foot traffic from the subway, and further added to by a DRL. If we presume that much of this headed to new development stretching north, I can see issues in the PATH and wanting to have a way to have people skip over the section closest to Union. This becoming not directly a transit issue, but a question of handling the foot traffic from actually having all that load headed to/from Union.
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From the USRC Capacity Study, pedestrian flow from Union northbound is 71% south of Queen St. of which 99% walk, 8% between Queen and Dundas of which 80% walk, 12% between Dundas and College of which 49% walk, and 9% to Bloor of which 22% walk.
Frankly, the PATH network has a higher capacity that Union Station regardless of what names are on the trains. The only situation where capacity might be an issue is if you build a new tunnel under the USRC for a few billion dollars, at which point expanding the PATH network to handle the extra load would be rolled into the project cost.
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This is a great idea on a fantasy map, but it falls down when it comes to reality. First, you are displacing 3,288 peak-hour vehicles by taking 2 of 6 lanes. Generally speaking, people only take the DVP during rush hour because they have no better options, so you extend the peak period and frustrate about 15,000 drivers. Furthermore, you’d need more than 2 lanes where you want to have a station. Next, who exactly is served by transit on the DVP? It has to be the lowest density part of Toronto. The plan then is to piss off a lot of drivers and not help local neighbourhoods? That is a political nightmare. Finally, are you going to have underground or elevated stations to connect to the surround neighbourhoods? The DVP is completely grade separated from the cross roads, so you end up with lots of stairs, elevators, and ramps.
As an aside, car drivers do pay for using the roads, direct fees are $108 for plate tags and $80 every 5 years for license renewals. Indirect fees are included in all our other taxes. I support transit development, but its proposals like this that give the whole business a black eye. You aren’t going to get people to give up their cars with transit in the middle of the DVP, just like the Sheppard subway didn’t reduce traffic volumes either.
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I have 2 issues, and why I mention it, first is that depending on the alignment of a DRL and direction of continued growth of the core, you could be adding significant foot traffic from a DRL, and also from improvements on YUS (although the effect of these is dispersed).
The other issue, is that ST discusses bringing having 200,000 added riders. This is very close to the total ridership of the current GO rail system. The way the projects have been approached politically, is very much like Union Station can simply absorb all this traffic, and when issues are brought up, they seem to focus almost entirely on the station itself. The concourse issues in Union do appear to be in the process of being addressed, however, at some point when we add a DRL that will increase foot traffic in the path by about 500 persons per minute, and talk about adding an additional 20 trains to Union which is also likely to mean an extra 600 persons per minute, into a fairly small area, that will be sharing corridor space especially in bad weather. I have no problem seeing such a rail tunnel under Union being proposed, and then even built, and treating the foot traffic as a problem for later, without it even being addressed. In the current Union Station configuration, or even the notably improved one under way, I would agree once you are beyond Union in PATH, PATH has more capacity, however, it will also have other sources of load.
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Steve – What are the odds that ST will actually get derailed (pardon the pun). This just seems such a distraction from what was prior to Ford a fairly clear picture.
I believe that Toronto will need to provide significant funding to get its transit back on track. However moving Toronto’s contribution of 2.7 billion for ST and SSE money would probably unlock almost enough federal and provincial money to get a complete Scarborough LRT & BRT network built (yes spend all the subway (SSE) money in Scarborough) , complete the Crosstown and Finch West LRTs to the airport, and build a solid chunk of DRL. Finding additional money to complete the DRL and Don Mills LRT and a East Bayfront LRT after that would likely be much easier.
I think the entire ST concepts also undermines RER and therefore real progress on a regional integration of an effective transit network. It also perpetuates the mix of grand plan – something for nothing politically driven planning that has caused so much heartache for so long in Toronto.
Building a DRL plus complete Transit City, addresses the vast majority of Toronto’s current rapid transit needs, and would greatly improve most surface routes, as they could send most of their riders to transfers away from the most congested areas close to Yonge.
Steve: A big chunk of that $2.7b for SmartTrack would be removed if the line didn’t tunnel west from the rail corridor to the airport. Frankly, I think we need to get a realistic cost for a realistic proposal, not a piece of election puffery that everyone is debating as if it arrived on stone tablets.
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We seem to be in a pretty horrid state if we are worrying about overloading our planned subway line to reduce overloading. In 2009, GO had 9k peak-hour riders on Lakeshore East and 2k on Stouffville. The projected 2031 peak-hour numbers are 6.6k (8 trains) and 3.3k (4 trains), respectively. Both of these numbers work out to 825 people per train and one train per 5 minutes. This fits into the spare capacity, but doesn’t leave much space for hiccups. This becomes an issue of juggling what spare capacity the combined system has between the parts most taxed.
I’m not sure who those four authors are, but they either have a glaring lack of local knowledge or the paper is woefully outdated. Between Queen and Lansdowne is one of the densest parts of the GO network peaking at 8 tracks with no space for a tunnel portal. What space there used to be north of the corridor is being converted into a public trail “West Toronto Railpath”. Of course this could be expropriated, but then you run into all the other problems in the area. Either you close Brock Ave. or reduce mainline speeds. There isn’t enough space to allow Barrie trains to continue to Union because of signal sightlines. A similar problem with Milton trains entering the tunnel, but less severe.
The Metrolinx Union 2031 Study instead suggests a subway under Queen, which is a different kettle of fish, mostly that of the DRL.
If I promised that it would rain candy if I were elected Mayor, would you then worry about the possible algae blooms in Lake Ontario? ST ridership number is complete electioneering. The Union Station 2031 Study already looked at all the ways possible to maximize the number of trains entering Union. Any growth in ST numbers are a direct displacement of GO ridership, the only difference being the trip origin. There have been several pedestrian studies by everyone involved in the Union area. I can think of 5 or 6 improved connections that are waiting in the wings for the bottleneck to be unclogged or for a related construction project to lower costs. Slide 8.
Steve: For the record, the York Street portion of the northwest PATH is under construction. It’s important not to cite maps from reports that reflect an earlier world view.
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This along with Steve’s comment about the parking garage on University south of King makes me curious about the possibility of PATH extensions under the street but above the subway tunnels.
Taipei has a flea market & underground mall running the length of 2 stations north of Taipei Main Station. In New York you can hear street noise, sometimes even conservation from street level above.
Obviously it depends on utility locations and money … but the possibility is interesting.
Cheers, Moaz
Steve: If you look at the diagram of proposed pedestrian improvements linked from an earlier comment, you will see a route to the northwest that goes directly over top of the University subway.
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Steve: it will cost a bundle to carry the expected future demand on streetcar routes using buses.
Yes but you forget that we are talking about replacing streetcars with buses only on streets with a DRL subway underneath them. It will cost a bundle to run empty streetcars all day.
Steve: Sorry, but if I look at some of the comments about a DRL, I see people replacing all of the downtown streetcar routes with one subway. It reminds me of the TTC’s attitude when the BD subway opened. They assumed that lots of people who took the King car would switch to the subway, even though they didn’t board anywhere near Bloor-Danforth. A 1’40” peak headway was cut to about 4’00”. That lasted about one month, and they were quickly back to 2’00”.
A DRL or SmartTrack will not intercept a lot of streetcar traffic because (a) some of the lines don’t actually intersect with the rail corridor or a future DRL alignment, and (b) the travel time penalty for transferring from, say, the Queen or Carlton car to a line in the rail corridor would negate whatever time saving the rapid transit line provided. This would be especially true for ST which would run on a noticeably wider headway than what folks in Toronto are used to as “subway” service. Just what someone wants to do — miss a train at “Riverdale” station when they could have stayed onboard the streetcar to downtown.
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I would worry deeply about the algae blooms in Lake Ontario, for exactly the same reason I am now. Bullshit is a very potent fertilizer, and when the amount surrounding the ST project finds its way out with the rain, it will induce algae.
I am very happy to point out every flaw, issue, and bit of evident inanity of the ridership projections of ST, simply to make this clear. Displacement of GO ridership does nothing to improve the conditions that ST is claiming to address, and directing attention away from the basic solutions is extremely damaging.
Your notion of a station away from the core, and using a DRL to support it, is exactly the point. It is predicated on the existence of a DRL, that ST claims can be replaced using GO ROW. This of course in addition to the fact that remote stations are inconvenient to say the least, and awkward to support if they carry significant volume. The notion that this station is required to support a large enough increase in traffic from the east or the alternate is one of a couple potential tunnel configurations further pushes this notion. ST is simply stealing a ROW that is required for RER, and a subway to core or another heavy link is required to provide access for the balance of the TTC.
Running 60+ trains simply requires another solution. I am not convinced by the findings in the initial studies surrounding Union, and further, do not believe we should be triggering plans that require massive expansion there soon.
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Thanks Steve
Another thing that has to be considered is the introduction of Pedestrian Scramble intersections at Bay/Front and York/University/Front … The recent meeting about the Bay/Bloor scramble showed data with a 2:1 ratio of pedestrians to cars at Bay/Wellington. With the anticipated growth in train trips and the planned Front Street plaza there will likely need to be scrambles at both ends of Union Station at Front.
Cheers, Moaz
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The interesting thing is that it might actually make streetcar traffic worse due to DRL/SmartTrack riders preferring to take the streetcar from ‘Riverdale’ station to the front door of their destination rather than walking from the closest subway station to there.
The only real benefit for the streetcar network that the DRL/ST would provide is to have a good place for short turns and a small amount of car storage to improve the reliability of service along the eastern portion of the 506 and 501 routes.
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I am also getting tired of people using the DRL as an excuse to get rid of streetcars. Those advocating elimination certain streetcar routes once the DRL is up and running have flawed arguments for many reasons some of which are as follows:
1) The streetcars run on routes where short trips for people with metropasses abound. Longer distance passengers on certain streetcar routes might be reduced because of the DRL but short-distance passengers are not going to go to a major intersection to access a station, go down to the platform, wait for a train, go back up, and then from the major intersection the closest station to their destination would be located at (this is essentially what Steve has mentioned as well)
2) Just look at the Yonge subway line. Surface demand is still very high even when the subway is running. Since the DRL would overlap with streetcar routes only in high density Downtown areas, a high capacity surface service would be absolutely necessary.
3) There are also many other reasons but are not worth mentioning because those who hate streetcars can never be convinced of their numerous benefits. Us poor streetcar folks have our hands up, so please don’t shoot just so that you can drive faster on our Downtown streets.
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I have to strongly disagree here. Pedestrian Scramble intersections are a horrible detriment to all other forms of transport (especially the TTC surface routes when affected – Dundas Square, for instance), that offer little to no benefits to pedestrians crossing the street.
All drivers experience a minimum 50% longer cycle time, not accounting for the effects of bunching and congestion. Streetcars suffer equally in this sense, but have the added downside in that more passengers are available to pull a “last minute board” during the green cycle, delaying it a whole 3 more cycles!
And what do pedestrians get? Let’s assume a third of every arriving pedestrian needs to cross to one of the three other corners, and that they arrive randomly and continuously in time. Already, 2/3rds of walkers are not benefiting at all – they arrive on a non scramble cycle, and regardless of where they have to cross to, the walk time is not changed from an intersection without scramble cycle. For the third of them that do arrive on a scramble cycle, the 33% that want to walk kitty corner directly benefit – they can walk to the far corner in one cycle, instead of 2. Keep in mind this is just 1/9th of walkers. For the other 67% that arrive on a scramble cycle but want to walk to one of the “near” corners, only half benefit from the scramble cycle – without it, at least one close corner would still be accessible, so that percentage of walkers (also 1/9th) experiences no gain. So ultimately 2/9ths or 22% of walkers save a whole cycle time in their walk, to the detriment of every transit vehicle and car that has to brave the intersection. Not worth it, in my mind.
Steve, I’d be curious to know the specific alignment (of a full line – even if the city refuses to acknowledge extensions west of Yonge or north of Danforth, I’m sure they’ve factored into your decision) or see the link where it’s described. Like Bremner/Fort York, Wellington runs into trouble a little west of Bathurst, and the specific routing from Yonge east also has a few potentials – along front and up, crossing at eastern ish, or slightly further south through the West Don Lands and Lever site (crossing around the rail path). I’m going to assume the pape/carlaw corridor makes the most sense going north, though I’d also like to see a little more density along the corridor as others have echoed earlier if this happens.
Steve: In my version, the Wellington line would swing south to Front by the time it reaches Spadina. Unfortunately, the land through which it might have done this may be lost to development because nobody has been protecting the right-of-way. West from Spadina, the line could either swing slightly further south into the CNE, or stay north of the rail corridor into Liberty Village.
I do worry slightly about the Yonge/Bay/York corridor between QQ and King, if a Wellington or King alignment is proposed, and the Waterfront East LRT succeeds. There’s no way Union can take another streetcar line – I imagine it’s going to be a nightmare already once all of Harbourfront/Spadina are the new cars, which take the entire platform on their own – and it would be much nicer to have the DRL connect with union than to have passengers who want to connect between GO and the DRL have to walk through PATH, not necessarily for crowding reasons but for convenience.
Steve: There is a proposal to substantially increase unloading and loading space at Union Loop with enough platform space for two new cars on the east side (unloading) and the west side (loading) in the straight section of the line south of the loop. It should have been built, at least the enabling structural and utility work, while the line was shut down for the QQ project, but the pols were too busy looking at suburban subways and LRT.
It would be beneficial if the DRL could come in north of Union on one side, turn 90 degrees south through Union to QQ, then head back out in the south and curve back up. To me it makes slightly more sense to come in “low” on the west, and out “high” on the east. I don’t know enough about the west end beyond the stops I list to comment on an alignment (Dufferin to The Junction?), but I’d have stops at:
Liberty village, not sure of location exatly but closer to King and Dufferin.
Exhibition station, connecting with both the GO and TTC.
Bathurst, I’m torn on the alignment. Lakeshore/QQ makes for a great transfer to the airport, but there’s already the LRT. Fort York makes the rest of my plan much easier and serves the development better, but it’s inconvenient to get to the airport from there at that point, especially in the winter.
Cityplace/Spadina/Skydome, station exactly aligned under Fort York/Bremner centered on Spadina. Exits at Brunel, Spadina, and Navy Wharf. Also serves CN tower and aquarium.
Harborfront/Ferry Docks, just north of the QQ utilities corridor stradling York, as east as it can be. Exit on the west serves Harborfront center, exit on east serves ferry docks. Both Connect with QQ streetcars (which no longer use tunnel to union – Harborfront goes the whole way across, and spadina loops back up somewhere in the east, I’d vote for parliament hehe).
ACC/Union. Curve north on Bay and take current trackage albeit dug deeper to go underneath YUS, and also starting to curve slightly west at around the ACC to make the following turn back east easier. South exit hits ACC, middle exit Union(GO), Northern exit Union(TTC).
King/Bay/Yonge, curve back east from previous stop to align stop pretty much under Yonge – exits at Bay and Yonge. Actually aligned along Colborne to avoid streetcar interuption as much as possile
George/Front, close to St Lawrence/ George Brown etc, aligned between Jarvis and Sherbourne
Distillery/West Donlands, just west of Cherry st
Lever Site, Carlaw, Queen, Gerrard, Danforth, etc.
Yes, it’s a very curvy and unrealistic route through infill etc. But it serves a large number of developments and density clusters along it’s route, as well as providing a better N/S connection between King and QQ.
Steve: Yes all of that is very curvy and not particularly practical given the need to dodge around building foundations, among other things.
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Matthew I think there is something wrong with these numbers. 6.6k passengers on 8 trains would be as you said 825 passengers per train. However with double decker trains this would be only 5 car trains. I think you are looking at 8 full length trains (10-12 cars of 162 each) on Lakeshore East if there is room for them and at least 4 on 10 car trains on Stouffville or about 6.6 k.
This PDF “GO RAIL OPTIONS BENEFITS CASE ASSESSMENT – June 2010” discusses peak period ridership for GO east on page 37.
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My dissection of ST is more to look at all the scaled back permutations to see what’s remotely salvageable. In general, Metrolinx squeezes in every train they can during peak hours. They could do better at off-peak service, but that’s just a policy change, not an infrastructure problem. Almost every detail of ST is flawed, but the basic concept might be salvageable. ST can’t exist as a replacement option because it doesn’t actually add network capacity. Leaving ST and its political baggage aside, something needs to be done to the USRC to support even RER level headways.
What other solutions do you think are possible surrounding Union? Almost every ‘minor’ tweak has been completed to maximize the USRC efficiency. Every switch has been rebuilt, platforms extended, a fly-under built to reduce interference, Maintenance Facilities built at the end of every line to avoid non-revenue movements to the URSC yards, and the Union Station concourse has been doubled in size. West of Bay St. the corridor is constricted to the point of electrification plans connecting catenary directly to adjacent building faces because there isn’t space for a pole.
What part of the Union Station Capacity Study wasn’t convincing to you? The ridership forecasts? The network assessment? The track modeling? Or the recommended options?
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I think they narrowed the options too quickly, and did not look long enough at the notion of not expropriating where required. I understand your point with regards to the tightness of the corridor, and that is one of my problems with handing over space for linear parks near a corridor that is already overloaded, it makes no sense to me. Also the study needs to be done with a DRL routing already established – and the DRL routing needs to be directed through or close to a point that would support a west of core station.
I do not think enough time was spent on the option of deeper bore tunnels well below existing subway. I understand that there is concern with regards to space to build alternatives like a Queen tunnel, and stations, however, if the City was serious about ST then we should be looking at deep bore and spaces through the core, including underground city parking lots (including CIty Hall) as alternate station sites. We should also be ready to look at expropriation and park reversion to support it. I think the province however, should also be prepared to look at these options for RER.
We should also be looking to see if there is the option for rapid transit conversion, and / or time separation, are there routes for tunnels that will not support heavy rail, but would support light rail (ie if the turns underground to go around buildings are too tight for heavy rail can light rail be an option for the entire corridor). The DRL needs to be part of the study, as does every viable option transit support that actually lightens the load at Union and in the USRC.
If we run UPX to Bramalea station and remove it and Stouffville for instance from Union Station, create a through routing, and TC exclusion, what load could we direct to an alternate set of platforms? Can we direct a lot of 905 transit to this line? Can we use it for 416. Could we run some trains on the outer portion of Kitchener only to Bramalea station, and have some of the riders board trains from there?
I think action around Union, needs to be planned around an existing subway line and looking at all possible alternatives. This needs to include more extensive deep bore tunnels, and more options for how to secure time separation for more corridors to make more extensive use of the rails. Each corridor should be looked at in this light, and how load could be diverted to it.
P.S. Also in the case of using light rail to snake through the available space in the core, we would be looking at the options on train length as well. The normally short trains required for mixed traffic use would not be required. Much longer than 120 meter trains as an option should be protected.
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The numbers are a bit sketchy, especially with the terms ‘peak period’ vs ‘peak hour’. The 2008 study also caps maximum service frequency at 6 per hour, whereas the USRC 2031 Capacity Study looks at a maximum of 12 per hour. Generally, as service improves gross ridership increases, but pax/train decreases. These 2031 ridership numbers of 20,200 with trains to Oshawa over the 3 hour am peak period. On 6 trains, that’s 1120 pax/train.
If you want to consider the worst case scenario, assuming all 12-car consists completely full, with a 2:1 ratio of Lakeshore East to Stouffville, the subway space capacity would max out at 9 trains.
Expropriation is a taboo subject for Metrolinx. They’ll do it if there is no other way, but they’d prefer a more expensive project to the community ill will this generates.
The issue with deep bore tunnels and GO is the maximum vertical gradient. Currently, this is 2% and with electrification possible up to 5%. A shallow tunnel is looking at 15m depth, so I’ll assume a deep tunnel is 25m. that means you need between 500m and 1250m clear of any underpasses. There isn’t a location south of Dundas that meets that requirement. Assuming road closures in addition to expropriation isn’t a problem, then you could close Dufferin St.
Overall, tunnels are better served by becoming subways or underground LRT. Assuming construction costs are equal, a GO tunnel peaks around 23.2K pax/h, while a subway can reach 36k pax/h. Thus I’d rather see an independent DRL East subway from Bloor Station down to Queen St. and east from there, rather than a GO tunnel basically the same alignment. The trade-off being GO passengers needing to change at Bloor versus better local service.
Again with the option of rapid transit conversion, that would operate as a separate entity because once they are above grade they’d need to operate with HRT impact standards. As such, it’s a good idea for Toronto transit, but not as part of GO expansion.
The capacity constraint of the system isn’t so much the platforms at Union Station as through capacity in the USRC. There is 1 through track (without platform) of the 16 tracks located at Union Station. In order for this track to connect to the Weston subdivision it needs to cross 5 or 6 #10 turnouts as part of the ladder track for a distance of 230m with a max speed of 24kph. Combined with a GO train length, that’s 1.5 minutes per train. There are many studies comparing through operation and double berthing, with the result being double berthing is better.
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Sorry the reason for the set up was too avoid having to do much to turn the trains. Goal one, is to remove these 2 (UPX and Stouffville) from the USRC entirely. The notion in terms of conversion to rapid transit, requires isolation from mainline operations, and hence removal of anything from Stouffville other than the trains in question. I think the real issue is being able to get all other traffic off this route (alternate route for CN emergency bypass trains), and of course the non trivial issue of how to get around through Lakeshore East with TC exclusion on the tracks in question (short of a brutally long tunnel).
The other issue with tunnels and what is feasible would come down to how much tunnel are you prepared to dig? I think this should be part of a very long term view, and the cost of starting north even of Bloor should be on the table. Correct me if I am wrong, but if you have TC exclusion, and operate the equipment as a dedicated service on separate track or with time separation it should not matter technically who is operating the equipment or the line should it? However, I can see this could be an issue for GO operationally – especially in terms of organizing maintenance space.
My problem is however , that it should not matter who operates the line, but the nature of service. I have no problem with the idea of underground LRT for a portion of the line, as long as the surface portion can get TC exclusion and operate LRT on the balance of line. If we can get TC exclusion and are going to run LRT or EMU from Brampton to Markham that works for me as well, just need to make sure that the layouts will support long trains and maintain line capacity well in excess of 20k. One of the reasons I do not think massive projects should be approached around USRC, but planning should be done, and the linking services for TTC be built fully planned and ideally built first.
This to me creates an issue, increasing the odds of this type of issue. Terminus of a line should ideally be close to the largest destination for its riders, or to a line where there is capacity to nearly instantly accept the transfer load (LRT to a point at or near the end of a subway).
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I see your argument and it is fair to say that it applies when the scramble is not implemented properly. Instead of having a full scramble 1/3 of the time it would be more sensible to have a pedestrian scramble with each light cycle and no pedestrian movements in between.
Cheers, Moaz
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You see personally – I want to see an independent DRL from Eglinton through the core, ideally through Wellington and come west of the core proper to provide for a longer term connection to what I still pray can be a LRT service for southern Etobicoke. Thus I see a DRL east coming first – planned complete. I worry about plans to use a substantial amount of DRL “spare” capacity as I also believe we should be building the Don Mills LRT (to at least Finch), and think the loads that this would attract and the growth it would trigger along its path are high. Also I expect to see substantial growth in the area surrounding the end of a DRL at Eglinton, and along the Crosstown especially after a DRL to Eglinton has been approved. I would also expect to see an increasing modal shift in the areas around each of these projects- as you noted in a previous comment the DVP is used only because people have little choice, and these routes radically improve those choices for a larger area, both increasing the number of destinations (including with better transfer to local surface routes) and origins reasonably supported.
I think the loads on a DRL would be pushing 18k before you build a Don Mills LRT, and would likely jump an at least an additional 5-7k through development and increased diversion. I would rather plan to deliver GO directly to a terminus station close to the core and to a subway location that has very substantial empty capacity (station at Spadina for a subway that ran as far as say the Ex for instance would deliver that).
So basically plan, approve and build the darned DRL, and do the planning for Union in the context of its existence. In that light we need to make sure we can say yes for a Bathurst/Spadina (Fort York) station with a subway that would be lightly loaded at that point and PATH connection. Union and the USRC need to be preserved for regional growth, and to the extent a project can be planned for similar cost that would remove load from there please do so (WWLRT, DRL etc). However also protect whatever path can be found for future expansion – both a Queen tunnel, and/or a Lakeshore tunnel. There is not excess land in rail corridors in the Toronto area!
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