Sorry for the absense, took some time to find the resources necessary to back up my point.
Well, we'll just have to wait and see. I am not wedded to the idea of a Front/Wellington alignment, that's where it looks logical to be on the map. But let's see when the studies come out.
You may not be wedded to a specific alignment, but seem adamant that it be south of King.
We'll have to see. It may still be cheaper to have a subway stop and a few buses feeding the neighbourhood than a whole LRT mini-network. Moreover, given the densities being projected for these neighbourhoods, I am skeptical that LRT will be enough. Queen's Quay and Lakeshore are going to become a dog's breakfast with the amount of LRT that might be needed to serve all these areas.
You haven't been following the public consultations for these areas. First off, a bus network in this part of town is a total non-starter. There are no bus garages in this area, and the Portlands carhouse for LRTs will be up and running in 2-3 years from now, this makes it far easier to serve the area by LRT than bus, nevermind the fact that downtown surface transit is streetcar-dominated already (which has operational implications and managerial impacts for TTC). Furthermore, the way the plans are devised is to make transit significantly attractive from the get-go with the community built from scratch. A bus simply isn't sufficiently attractive, nor would it be able to adequately cope with the capacity at points closer to downtown. Check the BA Group studies, they've got figures at countless intersections throughout the area (including East Bayfront). LRT is more than sufficient. I find it funny though, that you suggest a bus network and then backtrack in the same argument that an LRT network might not be enough (LRT carries more than bus, if you didn't realize). An LRT
network won't do, yet
one subway station will? I find this rather unrealistic. This kind of one-or-the-other logic is what has held transit back in Toronto for decades.
If that's the case it certainly hasn't been publicized heavily. The DRL only came up as a condition of the Yonge extension. And if GO was pushing for a TTC DRL how comes it ended up in the 25 year plan. If there's one agency you'd think would have influence on Metrolinx you'd think it would be GO.
The big blocker of the DRL is, ironically enough, TTC itself (I've gotten it straight from both senior TTC staff and senior Metrolinx staff).
Please do put up your sources for this. It's news to me that Union would max out after the upgrades....seems to me that would make the upgrades poorly designed.
I get most of my info on Union Station developments from Steve Munro. He sits on the committee that is behind the Union Station project. He talks about it on his blog sometimes, I'd recommend reading it once in a while.
Modifications have already been made to the design to accomodate more people, but at the expense of sacrificing retail space (the same retail space that was supposed to generate revenue to pay for the renovation/restoration). The other issue isn't so much a design of the station itself, but a limitation of the track space, which is considerably difficult to expand (nevermind the fact that platforms are already obscenely narrow at Union).
Again, I have never heard any official say we need the DRL to relieve the PATH. If you do have stats and articles please post. I do want to read about it.
Have you heard of the PATH expansion project already underway? Did you know that the Union subway station fare gate area is being re-designed to allow better pedestrian flow (and keep through traffic away from the fare gates) because pedestrian congestion is a problem currently?
That's as present. What happens once all those developments come in along the waterfront. How will those ridership numbers change? That's the question. What do you do if you have a job at the Portlands, West Donlands, East Bayfront? How would a subway on Queen help ya?
You act like the demand on King and to a lesser extent Queen is just going to disappear because of the Waterfront developments. That demand isn't going to fizzle, Downtown is so resilient at this point that the demand cannot possibly fade. If anything, as populations increase in surrounding areas, including King West and Queen West, like the Triangle for example, demand is only going to continue to rise. With the King car already over 3,000pphpd, which is overcapacity, we know the demand is there for a subway now, today, even yesterday.
You don't seem to understand that the catch-basin of the Lake Shore - Queen's Quay corridor is very narrow, too narrow for a subway. There is no way that LRT will not be able to cope with the demands of this corridor, especially considering that these areas are being redeveloped in a manner to encourage walking commutes, as that's something that is strongly promoted in the Official Plan. Furthermore, since it is a mix of employment lands and residential developments, you'll see bi-directional traffic demand, which is great because it allows both directions to be profitable to TTC at peak (and off-peak too, but it will be most pronounced at peak). Because of the demand split between incoming and outgoing, subway would actually be overkill, easily.
The Queen's Quay West service has already been cited by some people here as packed. What may not be obvious to everyone is that the TTC doesn't run enough cars on this route to accomodate the demand. There aren't enough cars to spare for additional service, either, since the whole streetcar system is suffering from a fleet shortage to the point that the TTC is expecting to supplement some service with buses spliced in among streetcar routes late this year. Once the new LRVs are finally here, Queen's Quay service should dramatically improve. Then there's Bremner.
Fair enough. Like I said, I haven't heard of Union maxing out. If it's true that should be a concern. But till the TTC or Metrolinx or GO starts talking about the upgrades being inadequate it'll be your word against that of the authorities.
As I said, I get it from Steve Munro, and since Steve Munro is an inside source on the Union plans, I consider him to be a valid source on the issue... an "authoritative source" I guess.
If our goal then is to relieve Union and GO is that concerned about it, surely 5 nodes are better than 2?
GAH!!! Give me a break, think about what you're saying here:
First; if two stations very conveniently connect to all but one of the other current lines in the network, what purpose do the other 3 serve?! NONE!
Second; if both lines go to the same place [Union], why in the world is one going to transfer to another line that goes to the same place?! THEY WON'T!
Sorry, but that argument was beyond non-sensical.
I don't think 5 minute frequencies is the goal of Metrolinx. GO can talk all that want. But if there's no plan on the table than we have to use the targets we have. That's not to say that GO can't be upgraded as an alternative to the DRL of course. That's just not the situation at present.
Metrolinx refers to Express Rail [Electrified GO] as having 5 minute frequencies in
this Backgrounder on Technologies.
It's not intended to be an alternative to the DRL, but part of the argument that the DRL should not be run along the rail corridor because GO is potentially going to be providing such high levels of service along it anyway.
That's fine enough for that era. That does not mean that every subway line has to be built that way though.
Logic would suggest that it does actually. We have already seen what happens when we don't do it that way. Spadina (north of St.Clair West) is still carrying LRT levels of demand today, 30 years later. It's the upper echelons of LRT, sure, but still LRT levels. Sheppard is carrying even less. TTC loses money on these subways as they don't carry enough people to pay for themselves. By contrast, Bloor-Danforth and Yonge are profitable.
A DRL on Front/Wellington will divert many of those riders and subsequently reduce demand on those routes. The argument, I guess comes down to how many of those riders are local vs using Queen/King as through routes. The second argument comes down to how much new development will be there and whether that demand would exceed anything that's present on Queen and King right now. I am willing to bet it does. You disagree.
I point to the
BA projections as proof.
What's clear from these projections is that demand on King and Queen, combined, is greater than demand on Lakeshore and Queen's Quay, combined, by the order of about 1000pphpd. Significant to note here as well, is that east of Sherbourne, the mixed-traffic LRTs are carrying more people than the dedicated ROW routes, yet the mixed-traffic routes have lower capacity.
While it is true that the demand seems to pick up west of Bay St. on Bremner and Queen's Quay, it is worth noting that King St. West is outside the scope of these projections, where the demand is highest on the King route (as identified in previous studies by TTC). Similar is true for Queen (
as illustrated in this table based on the very recent TTC report/update on the Queen car from Steve Munro, the highest ridership is between Bathurst and Church (not surprising)).
