At its board meeting on June 25, 2015, Metrolinx will consider an update on the study of capacity relief for the Yonge Street Corridor in Toronto.
The report states that projected demand on the Yonge line can be handled for the next 15 years:
1.a. Significant relief to the Yonge Subway will be achieved with currently committed transit improvements underway including:
i. TTC’s automatic train control and new subway trains;
ii. The Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension; and
iii. GO Regional Express Rail
1.b. Based on [the] above, more rapid transit service and capacity that is currently funded and being implemented will meet the future 15 year demand, assuming current forecasts on the growth rate of downtown employment and the implementation of TTC automatic train control on the Yonge Subway.
Continued work is recommended:
2. Direct the Metrolinx CEO to work with the City of Toronto City Manager and the TTC CEO to develop an integrated approach to advance the Relief Line project planning and development, incorporating further business case analysis and the findings of the Yonge Relief Network Study to:
- further assess the extension north to Sheppard Avenue East to identify a preferred project concept,
- inform the planning underway by the City of Toronto and TTC to identify stations and an alignment for the Relief Line from Danforth to the Downtown area
- continue to engage the public in this work as it develops
3. Direct staff to work in consultation with York Region, City of Toronto and the TTC to advance the project development of the Yonge North Subway Extension to 15% preliminary design and engineering.
The emergence of a variation on the Relief Line that would operate north to Sheppard is quite a change from days when even getting discussion of a line north of Eglinton was a challenge. The context for this emerges by looking at the alternatives for “relief” that were considered and how they performed.
The next report to the Metrolinx Board will be in Spring 2016. The challenge will be to keep planning for a Relief Line “on track” in the face of the excitement and political pressures for GO RER, SmartTrack and a Richmond Hill Subway.
Politically, this study exists in a challenging environment where just about every other transit proposal on the planet (and possibly several neighbouring galaxies) takes precedence because almost nobody wants to grasp the nettle of advocacy for more subway capacity into the core area. The idea of a line east then north from downtown has been around for a very, very long time including incarnations as the Queen Street subway and as a Skytrain/RT line when this technology was expected to blanket the city with low-cost rapid transit. Later, the TTC had grandiose dreams that it could carry every passenger who might arrive on the Yonge line with shorter headways and heroic reconstruction of the Bloor-Yonge Station.
There was a period in the mid-1990s when the ridership losses of a then-recent recession drove subway demand well below its historic highs of the 1980s, a level to which it has now returned. This gave a false sense that there was plenty of room to spare. By the time an extension of the Yonge Subway north to Richmond Hill was on the table, Toronto Council said “enough is enough” and demanded that capacity relief be guaranteed before such an extension would be built. That spawned the current round of Relief Line reviews.
Additional historical background is available in a January 2009 TTC report.
When relief first became an issue for Metrolinx in September 2013, the RER plan did not yet exist, although a lot of the background work to it was already underway. Many proposed mechanisms for capacity relief did not consider the possibility of substantially increased GO capacity as a network-wide project. The update notes:
With RER – which will provide medium term relief – the focus is now on when additional relief is needed for Yonge Line and then on the intervention. [p. 10]
Meanwhile, the City of Toronto is undertaking a study and consultation about the lower end of a Relief Line with corridor options broadly speaking via Queen or King through downtown, and via Broadview or Pape through Riverdale. The clear favourite already is a Pape/Wellington alignment, and an important consideration is the ability to extend north from Danforth.
Downtown Toronto has received the bulk of growth for the past two decades, and this trend is accelerating as the desire of firms to locate offices downtown accelerates. Downtown now has 35% of the jobs, and the number has grown by 51% over 1993-2013. In the decade from 2003-2013, growth has been 80% reflecting the acceleration out of the 1990s recession. [For greater detail on growth within Toronto, please see the May 2015 edition of How Does The City Grow? from Toronto’s Planning Department.]
A series of charts ending on page 20 show the anticipated evolution of demand and capacity.
Yonge Line Capacity
The scheduled service today on the Yonge Subway (Line 1) is 141 seconds, or 25.5 trains per hour, during the AM peak period. At a design load of 1,080 passengers per train for the TR fleet which serves this line, the peak capacity is roughly 28,000 per hour. Line capacity is projected to increase to 36,000 per hour through the implementation of automatic train control (ATC) in 2020.
This will require that peak headways be reduced from 141 seconds to about 110 seconds, or close to 33 trains/hour. ATC is technically capable of handling this subject to geometric constraints such as terminal configuration, and expedited flows through congested areas such as Bloor-Yonge made possible with better regulation of train spacing.
Over the years, the TTC has made various claims for the ATC-related capacity increases, but these have gradually declined. As recently as fall 2012, they claimed a 35% potential bump in capacity to 38,000 per hour, but this has been scaled back to 36,000. Achieving this will stress the capability of Finch terminal, and it is uncertain whether a 110 second headway can be operated without change in the terminal geometry (for example, use of a split terminal involving multiple tail tracks, or operation of partial service to a point further north such as a Steeles Station). Much is riding on the claims of what ATC can achieve with the existing network, something we cannot verify until the new signal system is in place and crew management at the terminal becomes razor-sharp.
Another way to increase capacity is for the TTC to buy longer trains for YUS, but that is not in the cards until the mid 2020s. The existing TR sets would move to BD and the new trains would operate on Yonge with roughly 10% more capacity. This would either add to line capacity, or drop the required headway back to about 120 seconds which is not quite as tight as 110. (30 trains/hour with a capacity of about 1,200 gives 36,000 passengers/hour.) This is still one of the possible options according to a conversation I had with TTC CEO Andy Byford at the Board meeting on June 21.
The Evolution of Demand
Current subway loads exceed the design level, and the line is actually carrying 31,200 per peak hour. Of this, about 1,300 (4%) of the riders are expected to shift to the Spadina extension (TYSSE) when it opens at the end of 2017. (Total riding on Spadina will go up somewhat more thanks to new riders attracted by parking, and increased riding from YRT/VIVA feeder services.)
In the absence of other changes, growth will add 6,600 riders on Yonge by 2031, and a Richmond Hill extension would add a further 2,400. Without relief, this would bring the total demand to 38,900 passengers/hour, well above the line’s capacity. A related problem is that Bloor-Yonge Station cannot accommodate the traffic likely at such a level, and a $1-billion plan exists to very substantially increase passenger flow capabilities there. Any scheme that avoids this pressure also avoids the cost, time and disruption for the construction project.
GO RER (including SmartTrack, it would appear) is expected to divert 4,200 riders/hour from the Yonge line. This is actually not a very large number compared with the total demand. This has major implications for the “selling” of SmartTrack as the line that will solve every problem. GO’s expansion may well carry more riders, but they will mainly be commuters who would not otherwise be on the Yonge line. No demand estimates for the GO RER services are included in the Metrolinx report.
This leaves us with a net projected demand in 2031 of 34,700, slightly below the planned 36,000 capacity, but with little headroom for growth or error. Under this scenario, the Relief Line might not be needed “today”, but there is no time for dallying with the thought that serious planning for it can be put on the back burner.
Options For Relief
Metrolinx planners modelled various options to see how they would affect demand on the Yonge Subway:
- Increase GO service beyond the planned RER levels, a so-called “RER Plus”, on the Richmond Hill and Stouffville corridors
- Build a Relief line either:
- Downtown to Danforth (“Relief Line Short”)
- Downtown to Sheppard (“Relief Line Long”)
- Danforth to Bloor via Downtown (“Relief Line U”)
- Build a surface LRT corridor from Downtown to Don Mills
The surface LRT option differs from the subway in that it has fewer stops (8 vs 14) and therefore is intended more as a Don Mills to Downtown service than one that also picks up demand along the way. The anticipated running times are comparable, but this would depend on the availability of a totally protected surface alignment. It is hard to believe that a surface line running on streets could achieve a 20 minute trip time as this would give an average speed in excess of 45km/h.
In the chart above, the “Do Nothing” option includes RER and SmartTrack.
The RER+ network shows almost no effect on subway demand. I asked Metrolinx about this.
In the chart on page 31, RER+ is shown to have a minimal effect versus “Do Nothing”. Is it correct that the “base case” here is actually GO RER, not the current network configuration? In other words, is it a situation that RER itself will bleed off some amount of riding and there isn’t much left over for enhanced RER to pick up in this time frame?
Metrolinx (Leslie Woo, Chief Planning Officer, via email): You are correct. The base case includes RER and all other committed/funded projects. “Do Nothing” means the base case or nothing beyond current commitments. The low attraction of RER Plus is an indication that RER really optimizes the diversion from the Yonge Subway.
In other words, RER picks up almost all of the riding available for diversion from the Yonge line, and further enhancement of service has little effect in the model.
The projected demand for the “Long” option to Sheppard is very impressive, well into the territory where subway technology is the only reasonable choice, especially considering the areas through which the line must pass. The offsetting benefits on the Yonge and Bloor-Danforth subways are very large to the point where expansion of Bloor-Yonge capacity would not be necessary. Moreover, the reduced demand on both existing subway lines would have effects on fleet size and operating costs. All of these are offsets against the cost of a “Long” Relief Line.
Indeed, the Long Relief line would cut demand on the Yonge Subway by about 1/3 (11,600 riders out of 32,300), an impressive contribution to the network. It is hard to imagine a Yonge line with barely more than 20,000 riders on it in the peak hour.
On the Bloor line east, demand falls by about 1/4.
The comparative cost of the Long Relief Line at $7.8b and SmartTrack at $8b shows an obviously much greater benefit for the Long Relief Line. An obvious question here is the need to reconcile claims for SmartTrack with the service levels and ridership that come out of the demand model. SmartTrack may well have riders, just not the ones we seek to divert from the core of the subway system.
Both the Relief Line and LRT options will receive further study, but RER+ has been dropped from the mix. This is important if only because it turns the focus for additional core-oriented service to a line serving the inner part of Toronto that can have a major effect in redistribution of demand, rather than on the outer ends of the network. This is not to minimize the importance of GO, but to recognize that there are two separate markets and one “solution” cannot serve both of them.
A technical report with details of the demand projections will be available in July 2015.
Steve Munro 
A clarification please:
“In other words, RER picks up almost all of the riding available for diversion from the Yonge line, and further enhancement of service has little effect in the model.”
Does this mean that RER / Smart Track actually doesn’t reduce Yonge line congestion, just reduces the growth of it?
Steve: Yes. The growth is about 6K, and RER/ST removes about 4k. This is not the sort of news I think John Tory wants to hear.
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Is it realistic to expect such a major capacity growth on Yonge subway, from 28 K to 36 K, due to ATO + slightly longer trains?
Both improvements will affect the rolling stock capacity, but not the platform space, elevators, stairs, or passageways. Are we going to hit the next bottleneck in one of those elements?
Is Metrolinx even aware that such bottlenecks might exist?
Steve: That’s where the rebuilding of Bloor-Yonge comes in. Potential problems exist at other stations further south as well, especially for shorter headways where the load from train “n” may not clear before train “n+1” arrives. The TTC is certainly aware of this and has mentioned it on occasion.
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Is there any concept of new riders to the system? Or were they just looking at people who would switch their route … from the numbers 18200 are from Bloor and Yonge … so that leaves 1000 from elsewhere …
I would imagine that at least 1000 south of Bloor would come over from bus/streetcar routes (i.e. people close to the stations) … but for a line that long it’s hard to believe that there wouldn’t also be a bunch of people who gave up their cars based on the convenience of a closer subway with a direct route to downtown … there would also be potential for parking-lots at the Sherbourne station if located near the highway … so are they underselling the potential here?
Steve: Sherbourne is nowhere near a highway and the land there is more valuable for condos than for parking lots (it’s immediately south of Rosedale, after all). Until the technical backgrounder comes out with more detail, it is hard to understand where the tos-and-froms exist between various network configurations. But, no, they were looking at gross projected volumes.
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Also, am I correct in understanding that the yonge north is now going to go ahead with or without the DRL? 15% seems like a big step, shouldn’t we be advancing DRL to 15% first?
Steve: There is a lot of political pressure from York Region to advance it, and the former chair of the region just became a Metrolinx Director.
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One thing that strikes me is how the TTC appears to be oblivious to the concept of Induced Demand. In other words, the Yonge line is over capacity right now. How much potential demand already exists but is being prevented (demand destruction) by the overcrowding?
In other words, to assert that the Relief Line Long will result in peak Yonge demand falling to a bit over 20,000 in the year 2031 is, quite frankly, delusional.
One question: Am I correct in interpreting Slide 28 in the Metrolinx presentation as proposing that the Relief Line Long connects to the end of the existing Sheppard Subway? In other words, trains would run along Sheppard then make a right turn and head downtown?
Steve: The projections are done by Metrolinx, and so if there are any delusions, they lie in the model Metrolinx is using. I’m still waiting to see the details. As for Sheppard/Don Mills, the lines would connect, but not interoperate.
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If the DRL is to go up to Sheppard, or even Eglinton then 3 things are very important.
1. Eglinton LRT should be fully grade-separated from Yonge to Don Mills.
2. The DRL platforms should be roughed-in during the construction of the Eglinton line station.
3. The Don Mills / Eglinton station should be located away from the corner of the intersection (SW preferred) and not directly under the intersection to avoid disruption when DRL construction commences.
It truly is amazing that plans being considered now were not even thought about when the Eglinton contract was given out only a month ago. And the thing is that it is not a new idea – everyone has known for at least 5 years that a DRL to Eglinton is needed.
Steve: Considering how hard it has been to even engage people in discussing the DRL, there has been a lot of denial about the need for it among professionals, and it goes back a lot further than five years.
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Are there any studies relating to passenger flow through the car doors? How many passengers can be exchanged before the train has to leave?
Steve: Don’t know.
And how long can a train stand in Bloor station (the critical one) when the headways are 110 seconds?
Steve: This depends on how closely the next train can approach to the platform. If it can be sitting right outside of the station, then much time that is today a gap between trains will be converted to a reduced headway.
Would passenger flow be improved if alternate doors became entrance only/exit only?
Steve: This would be very hard to enforce. Better to not reach a crowding level where this type of flow control is needed.
Is there a diagram of the timing for the turnaround at someplace like Finch station?
Steve: No, but one of these days I will go up there and get some timings for myself. This issue has been noted in TTC reports going back years, and was part of the “justification” for the proposal to loop the north ends of the Yonge and Spadina lines together — eliminate terminal delays and allow closer headways.
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I am encouraged to see Metrolinx studying a northern extension of the downtown relief line behind Eglinton. It probably needs go a bit further north to Finch because of Seneca College and the high density apartment developments there. I have had this idea for years and this is the first time any study has taken it seriously.
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Really interesting to see semi-serious talk about the “Long Relief Line” option. Maybe now we can stop discussing Smart Track and focus and focus on building this necessary line.
Bigger question … if there is serious interest in building a “Long Relief Line” should we not reconsider the terminal of the Downtown Relief Line and build it to Eglinton instead of Danforth? A simple modification of the EA parameters and we could be discussing better network connectivity and bringing more transit to 2 high density areas (Thorncliffe Park & Flemingdon Park) and serving more people.
AND the Liberals would love to get Thornhill back. And they have a Cabinet Minister in Richmond Hill.
Cheers, Moaz
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And a study is all it will ever be – this northern extension study is to build support for the line that mark my words will NEVER go north of Bloor/Danforth. These northern extensions will be promised to get the Downtown Relief Line approved and once the Greater Downtown portion is built, the northern extensions will be abandoned. If this line is truly ever meant to go to as far north as Eglinton (let alone north of Eglinton), then let’s start building south from Eglinton and if not, then we are NOT interested in paying for more subways in subway rich Downtown.
DRL? “north to Finch”? Unanimous support from Scarborough and North York provided construction starts at Finch and makes it way south rather than starting down South and then NEVER making it north of Bloor/Danforth. The Sheppard subway was pushed with support from Scarborough and tax dollars from Scarborough on the basis that it would go to Scarborough Town Centre – now either give us (Scarborough citizens) our money back (for the Sheppard subway) or extend it to Scarborough Town Centre with compensation for not doing it 20 years earlier when it was promised to us in exchange for our support and tax dollars we gave for this Sheppard subway in subway rich North York.
Steve: This BS about poor Scarborough and how this is all a scam to get the bottom end of the DRL built really is a ridiculous fantasy. As for “your” tax dollars, “my” tax dollars in old Toronto are going to pay for your precious subway line, and “my” TTC fares downtown are subsidizing the Sheppard subway. Enough already. It’s time for downtowners to stand up and be counted.
This is the one and only one comment in this thread I am going to post of this flavour. The Scarborough Trolls should save the wear and tear on their keyboards.
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I think it is time for all tax payers, residents and commuters to stand up. Subway is not some toy, and be a question of fair or a matter of ego. It is a question of capacity, and alternate options. Where real alternatives exist they should be used first. The way it used to be done – way back – is how it should be seen now. The subway was built when running streetcars in endless streams would no longer meet demand. The DRL is to get people into the core – and it is not for those who reside downtown. It is for those who reside notably in Scarborough to be able to their work in the core. It is time that the ridiculous notion of simple extension for subways be dropped. Build subway only where capacity demands it, and there are no surface options. I would support an extension on Yonge, only to increase the line’s capacity, and knowing that Finch is ridiculously overloaded in terms of being a destination for bus routes.
If there was some reasonable way to connect a core bound LRT to a Danforth station, and then run down the valley, I would be all for that – even if that would be a stretch for capacity. How can people honestly not understand that the DRL is about allowing people to commute into the core – from Scarborough especially – and not about providing service within the Downtown. There is a single area in the subway system that is in serious capacity trouble, and that is the single stretch from Bloor Station south on the Yonge line. This threatens access to employment, this is especially true for those who need to transfer through Bloor Station to ride the Yonge line south from there. These nasty anti DRL comments make more sense from someone living on the Spadina line, and in the shoulder areas of downtown who does not want to compete for jobs in the core – not someone commuting from the Danforth side needing a transfer. From Liberty Village, or the Beaches, improved streetcar service, a dedicated right of way, and a real increased in capacity at Union for streetcars, would be just as good, and if congestion on the subway, meant that those people from Scarborough couldn’t get to jobs in the core – well, that just means better prospects for them.
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Are these Scarborough people deluded? I wonder why people who live in Rexdale and Etobicoke as a whole aren’t this vocal? How many subways are there? These guys are just deluded with all their constant whining everywhere you go. It’s important to debate but these guys are getting annoying with their entitlement and whining. Must every new transit project built in GTA have to go through Scarborough to please these trolls? When you have councillors like Glenn whatever his name is advocating for you, what else do you expect?
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SmartTrack/RER and the Relief Line are intended to do entirely separate things. The fact that one performs well doesn’t change the need for other. I’m with Steve – it would be very useful to see ridership projections for RER.
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Actually, what we should be doing is dropping the “we can have one but not both” mindset over the DRL and SmartTrack and do both. SmartTrack’s quicker implementation, once sanity emerges over the Eglinton portion, and it’s ability to kneecap Yonge subway ridership growth is important. However, you still need to build the DRL even if SmartTrack somehow eliminates all ridership growth on the Yonge line simply because the Yonge line is already unable to handle current demand.
Steve: However, if you look at the projected riding, GO/RER and SmartTrack don’t have much effect on Yonge at all.
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I meant Sheppard. Parking lots up there make way more sense.
Steve: A tiny difference!
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Although I do not agree with Joseph that everything is a conspiracy against Scarborough, I think there is merit when he says that “a study is all it will ever be – this northern extension study is to build support for the line that mark my words will NEVER go north of Bloor/Danforth.”
Metrolinx just awarded the Eglinton LRT line with no provisions for a DRL interchange station. It appears there was not enough support for a DRL from Danforth to Downtown so they dangled the carrot that it could go to Sheppard. The reality is that both Metrolinx and TTC (for different reasons) have not considered the DRL as a needed project and if they are forced into building it will keep it as short as possible.
Steve: At the point Metrolinx put the proposal together for Eglinton, the idea that the DRL was important had not migrated to the front burner. This is a very recent development for Metrolinx, and nothing prevents them from providing preliminary structural accommodation for the DRL in Don Mills Station.
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It seems to me that the Yonge line is over capacity because too many people are trying to go to the same place at the same time. I don’t think we have much of a transit problem at all; we have a commuting problem. Has there been any thought on ways to enable and encourage alternative commuting flows?
I realize that changing people’s commuting behaviour may seem unrealistic. However, when you’re talking about spending up to $7.8 billion dollars, I do think a lot could be done to get people to commute anywhere else anytime else, which also provides relief. Either in lieu of or in combination with building relief infrastructure.
Steve: This has been talked about many, many times. The problem is that changing commute times is very difficult, and the percentage change needed to achieve a significant reduction in crowding would require a large proportion of commuters to change their behaviour. Remember that those who have the choice to do this are already doing so.
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If the effect of fare structure was not included in the studies, then the effect of SmartTrack is not really known at this point.
If TTC riders can use SmartTrack for the standard TTC fare, and transfer to / from surface routes without any surcharge, then the number of riders diverted from Yonge subway will be the highest (but we still do not know how high).
Steve: This is one of the important reasons why I want to see the technical material behind the projected demands.
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I would have thought that the fact that the P3 consortium has already been chosen would preclude a change in scope – unless we pay extra for that change. If this is open for change, maybe the on-street portion can be renegotiated as well?
Steve: You really do keep beating this drum, don’t you. It is self-evident that the potential effect of a relief line is sufficiently large that provision should be included in the station at Don Mills and Eglinton for it. I have already sent a query about this to Metrolinx and await their reply.
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Scarberians against a DRL to Sheppard should keep in mind that such a project would induce demand along Sheppard East, strengthening the argument for a subway further east along Sheppard vs LRT.
Like another poster, I believe that if you’re going to Sheppard, Finch likely makes sense because of Seneca and the lands available for a Don Mills (North) LRT interchange + Bus terminal + 404 parkade.
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Steve, I would note that the $7.8B DRL Long cost should be compared to the net cost of SmartTrack at $5.4B, not $8B, because $2.6B comes from the provincial contribution in the form of RER’s construction.
Having said that, SmartTrack appears to be funded from 3 pools of dollars, each with a different form of fantastic accounting. Oddly this sort of insulates SmartTrack from comparing it to alternatives, particularly when it comes to the draw on the municipal purse.
Steve: Well, that $7.8b DRL has to be discounted by the $1b saving from not rebuilding Bloor-Yonge Station, and a very substantial reduction in fleet requirements and operating costs for the YUS and BD subway lines. One of those “Net Present Value” comparisons we see so much of would be appropriate here, not just the gross costs.
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Is a long DRL actually an extension of Sheppard subway toward South? Will it have four-car trains in that case?
Steve: At this point it is nothing more than a line on a map. I don’t think a Sheppard extension south would make much sense. The projected demand is comparable to the Spadina Subway north of Bloor on opening day.
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One of the other factors that should really be looked at in this case, is how it will affect the operations of the bus network, and the impact of other transit improvements. I cannot help but wonder whether this would reduce the stress on the longer bus routes east of Yonge, and would hugely improve the operations, and increase ridership on routes like Lawrence East.
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If it is not for people from Downtown, then how about we build one station at Don Mills and Eglinton, one at Bloor Danforth subway line, one at Yonge Line, and one at University Line for a total of 4 stations and if you don’t agree, then stop with this ridiculous suggestion that the Downtown Relief Line is not for Downtown people. I can just as well say that the Scarborough subway is not for Scarborough people but for tourists.
Steve: I would say that stations at Thorncliffe Park, not to mention Don Mills and anywhere from Eglinton north, are not for downtowners. Enough of this bilge! Let’s build a line with one stop at Malvern (on the CPR) and one at Union. A Zoo equivalent of UPX. Scarborough should be thrilled!
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I would put to you that you missed the old Unilever site, as a likely major destination in future for employment. Also the massively under served area of East York (which is not downtown), as Steve pointed out, to which I would add a stop near Overlea and Don Mills or close, and would suggest an allowance for a future stop at a new train station near the foot of Spadina – although that also would serve commuters coming in on GO not downtown residents.
The fact is this would represent the vast majority of ridership, and I think only leaves out maybe a couple of stops that downtown residents might like – Gerrard, and likely something near the St. Lawrence Market. However, from a purely downtown perspective, balancing these versus the taxes required, I would be willing to bet, that other than transit activists, not having a DRL will likely not be as big a deal (to those who actually live downtown) as many would think. Better Streetcar service on King and Queen, well that is a big deal for those west of the core, and even for large areas east of the core.
The DRL is about capacity – and the extra stations add service downtown sure, and thus help development and the tax base. That is a nice extra, not the reason the subway is required. A long (and dangerous) queue builds quickly from a small under capacity problem, if 500 people want to transfer to a Yonge train from every Danforth one, if only 400 can get on, well 100 left on the platform after the 1st train – 500 after the 5th ….. a little growth and those numbers are say 550 wanting to transfer, and only room for 325 on each train, 5 trains, leaving 1100 people on the platform. What are the numbers now, and what does the Yonge Bloor station look like now? What do trains leaving the Eglinton Station look like now? How about in a post Crosstown world? How much growth before there is virtually no room to board at Bloor on the Yonge line southbound?
Steve: But we know that the only people who get on at Bloor southbound live at Broadview and Danforth.
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Hello again,
I was wondering about the previous Metrolinx study on the capacity constraints of Union Station, specifically the two options proposed to deal with the capacity crunch. It proposed either a new station at the Bathurst Yard at Front and Spadina or a new underground station just east of Union. The capacity constraints were thought to become serious right around 2031 I believe, which is right in line with the timing of the relief line project. Yet I haven’t seen any reference to these scenarios in either the new Metrolinx study or the city’s station evaluations for the relief line. My expectation was that the Bathurst Yard concept in particular needed to be studied in conjunction with the relief line, yet this hasn’t been done. Steve, do you know if the Bathurst satellite station concept has been shelved in favor of the underground concept? Or perhaps the capacity issues at union have been overstated?
Thanks.
Steve: Metrolinx seems to be waffling on this depending on who I talk to. Now that more details about RER service levels and demands are about to come out, I have to chase this issue again. I did ask Bruce McCuaig about the Union West station recently, and he certainly seemed to think it was still on the table. The underground option is extremely complicated and expensive.
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I have a serious question, where can I get a good lines-on-a-map app on the internet? I am not joking. Do I have to print a map, then take a crayon, and scan in the results?!!
Steve: I am sure some of the mapmakers who follow this site can give you a good pointer here.
Excellent idea! A “UPZ” line to the Metro Toronto Zoo, one way trips $19 with Presto. The monkeys & hyenas would love it! There could be a stop along the way at UofT Scarbourough College, students could get a discount, say $12 one way. Right. The lines-on-a-map app can come in real handy right about now.
Though, in truth, I am very glad to hear about a “Relief Line Long” option, not just that it is on the table, but that it is short-listed feasible.
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Two of the benefits of LONG that you mentioned that was missing from YRNS were the substantial reduction in fleet requirements for YUS and the $1 Billion we’ll save by not having to rebuild BY Station.
The thing about the reduced fleet requirements perplexes me. Wouldn’t the cost benefits of a reduced fleet on YUS be negated by the costs of having to run a new fleet on DRL LONG?
Steve: The issue is that the DRL costed by itself will include capital costs for fleet and carhouse space, and operating costs for running the trains. On a network basis, trains will move from one line to the other, and this has to be taken into account as an offset. A similar situation exists with the SSE where the TTC will use existing spare T1 trains to operate the service, at least when the line opens.
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I personally wonder seriously if the Yonge station is the only one that would actually require reconstruction in a post Crosstown, world – let alone a Yonge extension. If we are going to push for a large increase in capacity on Yonge, in order to avoid a DRL, then you have to ask: at what point does does each station become saturated, and hence a delay to safe operations. Boarding and alighting create conflicting flows on busy platforms: how many stations will have issues at 33 trains per hour? How many at 36? How quickly can the destination platforms at Union, King, Queen, Dundas actually clear? What type of work will be required to actually permit longer trains to in terms of pocket tracks etc. What are we prepared to do at the North end of the Yonge line in terms of creating turn capacity? Also when all is said and done, how much time would 36 trains at 1200 passengers each actually buy the system (43,200) when we are already looking at 31,000, and likely a substantial amount of discouraged ridership?
I am not convinced that we can actually run trains at 100 second headways, or 500 foot lengths without a substantial investment, beyond just fixes at Y/B. If you project 2.5 % per annum growth on existing, that would be fully consumed in under 14 years – and I am not convinced we will have parallel capacity within that time. I am all for running models to see the extent that diversion can be achieved, but we also need to keep looking at the remaining loading.
Operationally I would also note – spending money to increase capacity on Yonge, as opposed to further east, also means more buses running into more congested areas. When we discuss the idea of extending Yonge, and the SSE, I think a DRL as far as Eglinton is required, and at least an LRT much further north from there. I would prefer that Yonge go no further than Steeles, and a yard be built there, and Richmond Hill be supported by very frequent GO – and some way of dealing with a the fact that GO does not own the ROW that far north be found.
Steve: The TTC is now talking about 110 second headways with an hourly capacity of 36k as their target. As for station capacities, I cited the $1b for Bloor-Yonge because this is a known figure that has already appeared in TTC budget projections. Others, like Dundas and College with their single exits, do not have published plans or costs. We missed a chance, thanks to funding squabbles, to get a north entrance to Dundas as part of the Ryerson development.
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Hi Steve,
Long time reader – thank you for providing such a valuable resource for everyone.
Is there any link or description about what the reconstruction of Yonge/Bloor station might look like? I haven’t been able to find any proposed construction plans or general ideas. Obviously adding a second entrance would be useful, but I haven’t been able to find any technical or even broad planning documents.
Thanks
Steve: I’m not sure that the current plan exists as a published report, but the heart of the scheme is to change the lower level (Yonge Station) along the lines of what was done at Union by adding another platform and separating the eastbound and westbound services. This has some very difficult challenges including building in an area that was formerly a swamp (that’s why the station leaks so much), and building inside the existing Hudson’s Bay building structure. It’s one of those heroic “we are engineers and can do anything” kind of problems that misses the basic question of avoiding the need in the first place. Once upon a time there was an even more outrageous scheme to add a third platform to Bloor Station by spreading the tracks further apart, but that idea has been dropped. Many years ago, I saw a model of what the expanded station would look like. It was impressive provided one ignored what was involved to actually create it.
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Of course this disturbing bit of realism should cause all to pause. If we consider that we hit 31k now, 36k is 6 years of ridership growth not allowing for a fair bit of discouraged ridership. I would expect that the subway would be at its rated capacity within a year if this capacity appeared tomorrow, if it is only going to be 36k. I would have thought in a post Y/B change, and extra turning capacity north of Finch the TTC would still be claiming 100 second headway as a possibility (although I think this would be a nightmare to try and maintain even with a 3 platform Bloor station on Yonge, and double the turning capacity).
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What we really need is allow people to draw lines and then run simulations to project their usage and network effects, rather then having to trust Metrolinx’s numbers.
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If there is concern about the capacity of other stations on the Yonge line, can the Eglinton station not be staggered? They are planning on moving the platform north. Why not move the platform north AND keep the south as well? The southbound trains would use the north part of the platform and the northbound trains use the south part. This would separate the passengers and create twice the platform space.
Steve: It won’t double the platform space because the shift is only about 1/3 of the length of the platform.
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I would add that in fact there is significant synergy between the two. Having both allows each to specialize and in turn provide a higher quality of service to their respective geographically diverse markets.
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Does anyone know if there has been a study to assess the effect of the DRL on the development potential of both the Danforth and Eglinton lines?
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