Hopkins123
Senior Member
Why are both St George and Spadina interchange stations? Some people may prefer the direct subway connection at Brimley/Eglinton over transferring onto the Crosstown if the line's passing by there anyway.
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Why are both St George and Spadina interchange stations? Some people may prefer the direct subway connection at Brimley/Eglinton over transferring onto the Crosstown if the line's passing by there anyway.
BurlOak
Senior Member
So a new line, like through a downtown area. Maybe DRL.
amnesiajune
Senior Member
Spadina is technically two separate stations connected by a tunnel. The reason they were connected is that, at the time of construction, the University subway didn't run on Sundays or after 9:30 pm. The subway was gonna be split into two services during those times (one from Union to Finch and another from Spadina to Wilson) and there needed to be a connection between Spadina and the rest of the subway system.
Considering the lack of traffic on University those days its interesting that the chosen street for western relief wasn't Spadina or Bathurst. Both would have been much busier.
amnesiajune
Senior Member
The University subway was mainly built so that there would be a connection between Yonge and Bloor-Danforth, and to get rid of the transit desert on University Avenue (there wasn't any service there except the Yonge subway and streetcars on intersecting roads).
innsertnamehere
Superstar
My understanding was that the University subway was built mainly to act as a "relief line" for the yonge subway, to encourage Bloor riders to use it instead of the yonge line. Its the reason bloor trains interlined on University for the first 6 months of operations, to direct passengers onto that line instead of the Yonge Line. The aim was for it to still be close to the same destinations as Yonge, and Spadina would not have worked for that.
When they eliminated interlining, the line saw ridership drop significantly. I believe it even closed on weekends. Eventually Saturday service was introduced, but I don't believe the line ran on sundays until 1978 when the Spadina extension opened. The Sunday closure forcing transfers at Spadina never happened, or at least didn't last long.
IIRC the YUS portion of Spadina station was initially going to be called Lowther station, until the tunnel was built. The YUS station actually gets very little use, I wouldn't be surprised if it is one of the lowest used subway stations in the system. Too bad its ridership gets counted with the Bloor portion of Spadina.
When they eliminated interlining, the line saw ridership drop significantly. I believe it even closed on weekends. Eventually Saturday service was introduced, but I don't believe the line ran on sundays until 1978 when the Spadina extension opened. The Sunday closure forcing transfers at Spadina never happened, or at least didn't last long.
IIRC the YUS portion of Spadina station was initially going to be called Lowther station, until the tunnel was built. The YUS station actually gets very little use, I wouldn't be surprised if it is one of the lowest used subway stations in the system. Too bad its ridership gets counted with the Bloor portion of Spadina.
nfitz
Superstar
It isn't counted with the Bloor Portion. See http://www.ttc.ca/PDF/Transit_Planning/Subway_ridership_2014.pdf
The Line 2 Spadina station is 38,550. The Line 1 Spadina station is 14,680 - which isn't that shabby. More than Museum. Heck, more than Woodbine.
amnesiajune
Senior Member
Nope. The University subway predates the Bloor subway. It was built partly with the intent of connecting the two subway lines, but it wasn't about "relief".
The purpose of that was to have point-to-point subway service, so that no matter where you were going you wouldn't have to transfer. It was dropped because it didn't benefit many people (most passengers wouldn't have to make an extra transfer without interlining, and at least as wouldn't be able to take the first train that came to the station) and it caused any subway delays to cascade across all three routes.
Cobra
Senior Member
If I can be down to earth for a minute...
I think with East Harbour being the next big office cloister in Toronto, the boat has sailed for STC and NYC to become office towers centers, same for Yonge & Eglinton.
However, with city planning aiming at redesigning Scarborough Town Centre by freeing up much needed land around the future station, a proper revitalization of that area could attract more condos developers, just like it's doing for Yonge & Eg and North York. Due to the current state of the STC area (quite ugly, terrible & unreliable RT and a mess), units are relatively lower than the rest of the city. However, with a redesign of the area, upgrade to the landscape and beautification by the city, the TTC and the arrival of the subway, the area value will increase, hence bringing more residential and commercial projects.
I think with East Harbour being the next big office cloister in Toronto, the boat has sailed for STC and NYC to become office towers centers, same for Yonge & Eglinton.
However, with city planning aiming at redesigning Scarborough Town Centre by freeing up much needed land around the future station, a proper revitalization of that area could attract more condos developers, just like it's doing for Yonge & Eg and North York. Due to the current state of the STC area (quite ugly, terrible & unreliable RT and a mess), units are relatively lower than the rest of the city. However, with a redesign of the area, upgrade to the landscape and beautification by the city, the TTC and the arrival of the subway, the area value will increase, hence bringing more residential and commercial projects.
Mr_Praline
New Member
This raises an interesting point: how are they actually going to redesign and "free up" land? It's either occupied by the mall, municipal roads and big box stores (and adjacent vacant plots owned by the developer), or it's government land (Civic Centre, library) and utility (Bell office). The vacant space surrounding the City land is a woodlot park (Civic Centre Park?) which they'd probably want to keep. The footprint of the to-be-demolished RT is relatively small, as is the bus station underneath which, again, I'm sure they're going to want in some form.
This was always my question about intensification at STC: I think it's a great idea, it should have been done a long time ago, but was it not done because there's nothing available to intensify? Is there any information other than the City planning website about what's going to happen?
Cobra
Senior Member
This raises an interesting point: how are they actually going to redesign and "free up" land? It's either occupied by the mall, municipal roads and big box stores (and adjacent vacant plots owned by the developer), or it's government land (Civic Centre, library) and utility (Bell office). The vacant space surrounding the City land is a woodlot park (Civic Centre Park?) which they'd probably want to keep. The footprint of the to-be-demolished RT is relatively small, as is the bus station underneath which, again, I'm sure they're going to want in some form.
This was always my question about intensification at STC: I think it's a great idea, it should have been done a long time ago, but was it not done because there's nothing available to intensify? Is there any information other than the City planning website about what's going to happen?
Keesmaat did point out that streets in that area were poorly designed and would have to be completely redrawn (new streets and old ones might disappear/remade) and that includes the precincts beyond the mall itself. Also, the mall could look at building multi level parking and adding some underground to free up more land. They could get their money back by freeing up land and sell it back to the city or directly to developers.
It's a mess but if all parties work together, STC can easily be transformed and finally enter the 21st century
44 North
Senior Member
that's just the McCowan precinct pictured. The ones to the east/west have more land available, and Consillium talked about expanding. Probably a thread here on it.
But agree with others, the road layout is pretty non-urban and kinda dystopian. Which I guess is like other mall-based areas like Sherway. We need to hire more planners or something. Can't exactly focus on a centre or these UGCs when there's actual development elsewhere across the map.
The area would definitely benefit from some kind of cross-district rapid transit line, one offering stations at the precincts and development areas, and which can connect to other lines and the city. Oh wait, we canceled that for SSE. Maybe one reason to re-look at SELRT and see whether a new line can cannibalize Line 3 infrastructure/route.
muller877
Senior Member
University even back when it was build had a lot of commercial buildings (Queens Park, Osgood, Canada Life, etc). Plus all the hospitals. And it's only gotten busier. Probably more commercial destinations on it than Yonge when built and they were expecting people to continue on the U to get to their final stop.
Currently University and Dundas has about 95,000 movements per day (Yonge and Dundas has 130,000). Spadina is lucky to get 50,000 movements per day. So I would not say that there is a lack of traffic.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
Hey, you know what has that? Kennedy @ Eglinton. But we've banned substantial developments there... for reasons.
Rainforest
Senior Member
An idea for serving the STC area after the subway is build:
1) Chose the Brimley Rd route, and place the subway terminus in the area bounded by Brimley, Progress, Borough Dr, and Triton Rd. Basically, that's just east of Brimley and north of the SRT path. A new bus terminal would be located in the same area
2) Once the subway opens, do not completely de-commission SRT. Remove the section that runs between Brimley and Kennedy Stn, and build a new station at Brimley.
Thus, we will have a short route serving 3 stops in the area: Brimley, old STC, and McCowan. Since the SRT cars will be refurbished, and the greatly shortened line will require just a fraction of today's car fleet, it shouldn't be difficult to select enough cars to operate until 2030 if needed. The old yard still can be utilized.
3) Before 2030, the city should figure out what kind of transit it wants to see in the today's East-West SRT corridor, and hopefully come up with some funding as well. At that point, SRT can be retired completely and replaced with a new service.
That new service can be a high-floor LRT that runs along Sheppard to Don Mills Stn, and then takes over the Sheppard Subway tunnel. Or, it could be a low-floor LRT that's compatible with the future Eglinton East and Finch East LRT lines.
1) Chose the Brimley Rd route, and place the subway terminus in the area bounded by Brimley, Progress, Borough Dr, and Triton Rd. Basically, that's just east of Brimley and north of the SRT path. A new bus terminal would be located in the same area
2) Once the subway opens, do not completely de-commission SRT. Remove the section that runs between Brimley and Kennedy Stn, and build a new station at Brimley.
Thus, we will have a short route serving 3 stops in the area: Brimley, old STC, and McCowan. Since the SRT cars will be refurbished, and the greatly shortened line will require just a fraction of today's car fleet, it shouldn't be difficult to select enough cars to operate until 2030 if needed. The old yard still can be utilized.
3) Before 2030, the city should figure out what kind of transit it wants to see in the today's East-West SRT corridor, and hopefully come up with some funding as well. At that point, SRT can be retired completely and replaced with a new service.
That new service can be a high-floor LRT that runs along Sheppard to Don Mills Stn, and then takes over the Sheppard Subway tunnel. Or, it could be a low-floor LRT that's compatible with the future Eglinton East and Finch East LRT lines.