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Danforth Line 2 Scarborough Subway Extension

So you're saying lets basically disrupt traffic flow for a few months. Oops, we should've built a subway here instead. More disruptions and money lost.
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I think parts of three of the TC routes should be subways now: Don Mills, Eglinton and yes Sheppard East too. The underground sections should be designed to facilitate subway cars, not necessarily the current model (unless the surface route stations have high-floor platforms to accomodate ease of entry/exit).

I've been misinterpreted as I don't think Eglinton necessarily has to stretch from Highland Creek to Pearson to be effective, but the section from Jane to Bellamy seems like a logical length that would be intercepted by dozens of feeder routes. As to alleviate the BD line I wouldn't create a separate line for Don Mills but rather S-wye Eglinton between Leslie and Wynford Heights. I've always been pro-Sheppard to VP in the short term but since I was against taking the Morningside LRT up into Malvern I thought it still makes sense to create a parallel LRT for that region. Hope that clears up some things.

Sheppard and Danforth to STC will cost $3 billion, while TransitCity will cost about triple that...it's better to spend money where it's needed, not to overspend in the wrong places just to get more wonderful streetcars and add world class colourful lines to our transit maps.
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As long as other areas of Toronto/GTA don't lose funding for their transit priorities I'm okay with that. We do need another subway line or two though and TC admittedly did woo me into believing the whole city benefited not just one corridor.

So you do know who socialwoe is? I'm not trying to discredit your point of view, just pointing out a similarity.
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I scrolled backwards in this thread and heard of him mentioned on other threads. He doesn't seem to be well liked. I fail to see though how his' wanting subways to Fallingbrook, the Zoo, Albion, Rouge Hill and Long Branch has anything remotely to do with my interest in getting subways to viable, density-centric transit corridors like Don Mills and Eglinton first and a rapid LRT commute for the peripheral suburban travellers?

First of all, Spadina stops at virtually every block. Compare it to the already-frequent stops on the University line. If a streetcar stopped as frequently as Spadina in the suburbs, it would take hours to get anywhere, and it would likely be slower than the bus.
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Except the mid-blocks wouldn't occur as frequently as 200m in the suburbs. Take Eglinton for example:

In tunnel, subwaylike spacing- Brentcliffe, Laird, Bayview, Mount Pleasant, Yonge, Avenue, Spadina, Bathurst, Eglinton West, Oakwood, Dufferin, Caledonia, Yore/Keele/Trethewey.

Outside tunnel, two stops to bipartite- Municipal, Black Creek, Weston, Jane, Emmett, Scarlett, 4000 Eglinton Ave West, Royal York, Eden Valley, Islington, Wincott, Kipling, Lord Manor, Martin Grove, East Mall, Renforth.

So in its own right-of-way, Eglinton from the Leaside area to the Airport Corporate Centre could be as quick as 30-40 minutes, 20 minutes underground, 20 minutes surface (modest estimate).

Yes, but why on earth should we spend hundreds of millions to build LRT, only to rip it out again a few years later?
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Ideally you're totally right. TC lines like Finch West, Jane, Lakeshore West and sections of the remaining four should be BRT first to prove or disprove the need for higher order transit. But politically this is how better commuter service is being passed down, you have to take the bad with the good I guess.

Subways are built nowadays with very large distances between them. 300-400m is not subway stop-spacing.
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I would hope if a DRL is ever built they'll adhere to the old-fashioned spacing approach for the core/CBD area and other places where one stop to serve 50,000 plus patrons is unexceptable.
 
The RT & Other thoughts

Ok, first the on-topic thought!

THE RT must go!

Why?

1) Its orphan technology. Used in only 1 other City in North America that I'm aware of (Vancouver), and even there, not with the same rolling stock, or operating procedures.

Further, the TTC has no serious intentions of adding more of the this technology on a large-scale; and there would significant cost-benefits to rationalizing the fleet (1 less yard, 1 less vehicle type, fewer parts to order etc. etc.)

2) The RT needs a rebuild anyway, as it the current equipment and track is at the end of its useful life. So there is mandatory opportunity.

3) By Building a subway along an alternate alignment, you need not close the RT till the new subway opens. The Current RT - refurb proposal means a minimum 18-month, probably 3-year closure and shuttle bus replacement.

4) The Current RT is at capacity, even with Mark II cars, it will only add 20-30% more capacity vs. what the combined RT and supplementary bus service have now.

There is no room for demand growth.

A subway would provide ample but not excessive new capacity.

4) The new alignment should be east on Eglinton to McCowan. under McCowan to Lawrence, ending at Scarborough Ctr.

The rationale for this is that the line must his Scarborough General which with thousands of employees, patients and visitors is a major trip generator.

The additional stop on Eglinton is near major existing density and has major intenstifcation potential.

***********

Other thoughts.

Based on Demand, the best candidate routes for Subways are:

1) To York U (Spadina)

2) Downtown Relief Line (Pape to Union)

3) Scarborough RT Replacement

4) Sheppard East (#1 in demand in LRT/Transit City proposal)

5) Yonge North

Least justifiable

1) Vaughan (Spadina Subway)

2) Don Mills (could support LRT though)

3) Eglinton EAST (as a subway its just not ready in the east end, as a whole)
 
Sorry if this sounds rude, but Northern Light needs more than a minor correction. Nearly every point in the argument is wrong.

1) Its orphan technology. Used in only 1 other City in North America that I'm aware of (Vancouver), and even there, not with the same rolling stock, or operating procedures.

A wider version of the cars is being used in New York. It's also used in Kuala Lumpur and will open in Beijing this summer, but they're admittedly not in North America. After the revamp, it will be the same rolling stock as Vancouver.

3) By Building a subway along an alternate alignment, you need not close the RT till the new subway opens. The Current RT - refurb proposal means a minimum 18-month, probably 3-year closure and shuttle bus replacement.

The service disruption is estimated at about 8 months, not 3 years. It may turn out to be less, if it turns out they don't need to significantly rebuild the tunnel section. It could probably be done in phases, such as 2 or 3 summer shutdowns.

4) The Current RT is at capacity, even with Mark II cars, it will only add 20-30% more capacity which is roughly what the combined RT and supplementary bus service have now.

In fact, the potential capacity of this technology is about 20,000 passengers per hour per direction, which is more than four times what it currently carries. There is enough capacity for decades.

I agree that the decision to keep the RT has its drawbacks, but let's at least get the facts straight. It's financially responsible to opt for the least expensive solution, and environmentally responsible to revamp an existing, even if imperfect, facility and instead of abandoning it to build another that would have its own disadvantages.
 
Northern Light, your argument is sound and I agree wholeheartedly with you, even if there's quibbles over the technical details. Running a Danforth extension up McCowan would be more expensive than running it through ~Brimley as it would be slightly more track and probably one more station. An 8 month conversion would be wildly optimistic given the TTC's atrociously glacial track record on other projects, but a subway extension could mean no service interruptions, a massive benefit.

An RT reno is not the least expensive option when it's been fused with an extension...one of the main reasons it's being kept is so it can be extended. It's used in other cities and the technology itself isn't inherently bad, but it is an orphan in Toronto - that's undeniable.

There is simply no valid reason why the RT should be kept and/or extended, especially when a subway extension could cost less but offer better service to, literally, hundreds of thousands of additional people.
 
Detroit and Other thoughts

Now, it should be said I'm open-minded fellow; and welcome any fair critique of my posts.

However.....

Detroit's minimal use of the ICTS (Scarborough RT) technology hardly qualifies it as a transit system.

A modest 1-way loop of the downtown core, which generally operates at under 30% of rated capacity and which has been closed for 1 month or longer on 4 occasions since it began operation ( and no one really noticed)......

It is not worthy of including in any compartive use of the the technology.

**************

Second.....capacity.... the current rated max. capacity per hour of the SRT is 4,500 (see the TTC report on the future of the RT, here) http://www.ttc.ca/postings/gso-comrpt/documents/report/f2878/_conv.htm

In its upgraded form, it will arguably, under ideal conditions, reach a capacity of 17,000 per hour, as opposed to the subway which would rate 33,000 per hour.

However, this assumes optimal headways, which have NEVER been achieved the the SRT and which require a completely different terminal configuration at Kennedy, maximum permitted speeds, no adverse weather issues and a host of other hoped for 'ifs ' .

In practise, SRT is likely to have a maximum capacity of around 13,000 per hour which is the high-end of projected demand through 2030.

However, the demand estimates have been low-balled, since with shuttle bus service and the current LRT route load is 6,000-7,000 per hour, not even allowing for latent demand since the system is well over capacity.

Assuming a universally accessible subway extention, with the added tranfer-free status and you'll get a demand curve in the range 18,000 per hour by 2030, assuming near-static population growth in Scarborough.

Evenutally a subway will become necessary.

Why pay for the construction twice?

******

Finally, timing........

There is ZERO chance of an 8-month closer......talk to the nice people in capital planning or operations or service planning.

They will tell you a complete reconstruction of Kennedy/RT interface is required, that a new tunnel is need for track to sink into to meet Kennedy underground.....and that the bare minimum time out of commission will be 18 months....and service planning will tell you they are making a 3-year assumption.

The 8-month thing is only for tunnel reconstruction at the bend...and even that is overly optimistic by half.

*************

All that said...........even if the above weren't true (which it is)..... the RT is and ICTS in general is not particularly good technology.....its performance reliablity numbers leave a great deal to be desired, particluarly in cooler climates.

And maintaining discrete technology of operation of 1 small transit line makes no sense. Synergies will be substational with rationalized operation/vehicle types.

As a final thought, the future for passengers and TTC operations is much better with:

A) Transfer-free connection at Kennedy

B) A future loop link with the Sheppard Subway

Both of which are impossible with discrete technology choices.
 
Yeah, an 8 month construction timeline is highly improbable...it took about 6 months to punch the Finch station bus exit through to Yonge at Pemberton.

Tiny side note, but Detroit doesn't have 350,000 people...not yet, anyway...

(where's that *evil* smiley when you need it?)
 
I think most people would agree it makes no sense to keep an orphan technology like the SRT. So why can't we convince the TTC commissioners? Can we really live with yet another big mistake that we'll rue from ages?
 
Northern Light said:
Now, it should be said I'm open-minded fellow; and welcome any fair critique of my posts.

However.....

Detroit (proper) is not a major City...is population roughly 350,000
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I have no idea where you are getting this from. The city of Detroit itself is over 900,000. But like many American cities, the urban area is divided into dozens of cities. The metropolitan area is over 4,000,000 ... more if you include Windsor. Bigger than Montreal. Not a major city? There's a lot of things very wrong with Detroit, and transportation in Detroit. But with such a wrong statement to start your article, is there any reason to read any further?
 
There's definitely plenty of reason to read further -- all the rest of the points are very well taken.

On the premise that the costs are equivalent, as the TTC has projected, replacing the SRT with a subway and adding bus shoulder lanes on the 401 to serve Malvern and Morningside Heights is a far better policy than keeping the orphan line and inconvenient connection and extending it to the middle of nowhere at Markham and Sheppard.

There's also a very reasonable concern that this line (like the Sheppard LRT) will be at capacity a few decades after it's built. A billion dollar project should last more than 20 years, especially when we could build something that would work forever for the same cost.
 
Minor Correction

While all the information I took in previous posts was documented by various sources, all of which I cited; I freely admit the statistic regarding Detroit's population seems to have been baseless.

Having reviewed the City of Detroit's website, wikipedia, and the U.S. Census bureau among othe sources.....

The accepted population of Detroit (City) is between 880,000 - 970,000

Which nonetheless qualifies it as a minor City.

And in no way detracts from my other points.

Detroit is not in the 10 U.S. Citiies by population.

Nor is its CMA.

It should further stated that its CMA is deceptive large, since using the same sq Km stat for T.O. would produce a population of over 6,500,000.

****

On a related note, while I am quite content to accept varied opinions, this is after all what a forum is all about.

I have stated Elswhere on UT that I will not directly respond to posts by Nfitz any further.
 
Northern Light said:
The accepted population of Detroit (City) is between 880,000 - 970,000

Which nonetheless qualifies it as a minor City.
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That's the population of the political boundary of the city of Detroit. Which is almost identical to the population of the city of Montreal until the recent merger. Do you also classify Montreal as a minor city?

Or what about the City of London in the UK? It's population is less than 10,000.

I confess I haven't read the rest of the post. When the first line is just so obviously and totally ignorant, how can anyone take anything else seriously? How much time have you spent in Detroit?
 
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