"Downtown Core Line" - Possible Alignments?

[kEiThZ]

So many stations in the east would seem, to me anyway, to kill the whole political motivation for putting this line in early - ie providing a tangible relief to the Y-B station. (Too many stations = slow ride)

Actually, CC put in the same number of stations between Pape and Union on the DRL as the BD-YUS combination. So at worst the amount of time to Union would be the same. Hopefully, the shorter distance would help reduce travel time.

I also think that Union or south is wrong, but I'm sure keithz will eventually correct me there.

Hey, to each his own!

 

[PSC]

I'm not sure who this lecture is aimed at because it's not a response to what I actually wrote.

What I said was that transit projects are becoming more and more bloated (and when projects get bloated, yeah, money is wasted on consultants and architects working on the bloated parts...like the colossally bloated Leslie station, for example). Perhaps the trend can be halted in time to plan and design a more sensible and streamlined but equally as functional and attractive DRL.

Perhaps not what you actually meant, but given that you only mentioned consultants et al when speaking of waste (twice now), it's hard for the casual observer to not make the connection -> "consultants = baaaad".

I mean, why not say "money is wasted by everyone working on the bloated parts" in the paragraph above? Why single out consultants?

 

[kEiThZ]

We also need to factor in how substantially the downtown streetcar lines might/could be improved (POP, low floors, proper route management, etc.), as they could possibly be useful for people to take the DRL down to connect to the Dundas or Queen or King streetcar (wherever they may connect with the DRL) and then take the streetcars over into the core. With all the talk here of euthanizing the Queen streetcar via a DRL, why not consider some scenarios in between where it and other lines could become more useful?

Exactly. Why is it that most folks think that construction of a DRL to Union precludes any sort of improvement on King and Queen? Better streetcar service that connects to the line would accomplish a lot and would facilitate mobility better outside the core than just a subway line.

 

[PSC]

Exactly. Why is it that most folks think that construction of a DRL to Union precludes any sort of improvement on King and Queen? Better streetcar service that connects to the line would accomplish a lot and would facilitate mobility better outside the core than just a subway line.

I don't think the data support that the DRL will connect anywhere near where Queen ridership originates.

http://stevemunro.ca/?p=1817

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Perhaps not what you actually meant, but given that you only mentioned consultants et al when speaking of waste (twice now), it's hard for the casual observer to not make the connection -> "consultants = baaaad".

I mean, why not say "money is wasted by everyone working on the bloated parts" in the paragraph above? Why single out consultants?

I didn't single out consultants, you did. A casual observer would assume that you are a consultant, hence your willingness to defend them (even though they were not attacked) by putting words into other people's mouths.

 

[kEiThZ]

I don't think the data support that the DRL will connect anywhere near where Queen ridership originates.

http://stevemunro.ca/?p=1817

And that goes to my point of what are we trying to build....a subway for Queen or a relief line for Yonge/Bloor. Looking at where the Queen ridership originates does very little for Yonge/Bloor. We'd have to look at where Scarborough-East York riders are heading to maximize the relief of Y/B.

 

[PSC]

I didn't single out consultants, you did. A casual observer would assume that you are a consultant, hence your willingness to defend them (even though they were not attacked) by putting words into other people's mouths.

Go back, read your post here (which I quoted to start this little divertement) and then make your claim about me singling people out.

Perhaps this belongs in PMs?

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Go back, read your post here (which I quoted to start this little divertement) and then make your claim about me singling people out.

Perhaps this belongs in PMs?

Yes, you singled them out, just as you singled out the word "wasted" instead of the whole sentence. You seem to have taken this personally. Do you honestly think my post was an endorsement of bloated projects, huge, deep stations, gold-plated lines, with massive contingency costs added, and politically motivated decisions that trigger studies whose purpose is to rationally justify political decisions? Do I really need to list every single dollar that is spent and explain why it is being spent and why that dollar might be a waste just to satisfy people who'll end up drawing their own incorrect conclusions, anyway? There's a thousand posts on these subjects in a hundred other threads. Apologies for not being more systematically rantish.

edit - Of course, I could just said "bigger projects are more expensive" without listing some of the reasons but that wouldn't have provided any openings for you to lecture on.

 

[Dan416]

it's an LRT/(perhaps HRT in the distant future?) on Hurontario, in Missisauga

It's a subway map, so it's subway. Although honestly, by the time everything on this map gets built, we'll need a subway along Hurontario. Hurontario will be in need of subway long before the Eglinton subway, DRL subway, Sheppard west and east extensions and Danforth extension are all done.

Hurontario is the busiest corridor in Mississauga, and thus the GTA less Toronto.

As for why the east doesn't have one, erm, well it gets a subway hub at Kennedy (Eglinton & Danforth lines) and at Scarborough Town (Danforth & Sheppard lines). Beyond that (i.e. Durham) there's nothing.

 

[PSC]

And that goes to my point of what are we trying to build....a subway for Queen or a relief line for Yonge/Bloor. Looking at where the Queen ridership originates does very little for Yonge/Bloor. We'd have to look at where Scarborough-East York riders are heading to maximize the relief of Y/B.

Absolutely.

My thinking about Queen goes like this:

I imagine, first off, that the city ends at Front.



Second, I look at King and Bay as the epicentre of the crowd taking the subway to downtown.

I figure, if they're willing to walk from King, Union or St Andrew, they'd be willing to walk from Nathan Phillips Sq.

That's about the extent of my insight.

Now, it may well be that ultimately it will make sense to put a subway south of Union. That, I believe, has nothing to do with relieving B-Y. And they are getting LRT first, so...

I also think that Queen may be too difficult to build under.

I don't recall how I voted, but I definitely wouldn't vote for Union just because I think providing one point of congestion would be very bad design. Especially when GO parkership - er, ridership - explodes.

Therefore, I'd pick any line north of Front. Preferably King or north.

 

[kEiThZ]

Absolutely.

My thinking about Queen goes like this:

I imagine, first off, that the city ends at Front.



Second, I look at King and Bay as the epicentre of the crowd taking the subway to downtown.

I figure, if they're willing to walk from King, Union or St Andrew, they'd be willing to walk from Nathan Phillips Sq.

That's about the extent of my insight.

See Scarberian's earlier post on how riders' willingness to walk would affect a Queen DRL's ridership:

We can run the DRL along Queen assuming almost anybody between College and Front will transfer to it and then walk to their final destination, but is that assumption valid? If we're going to add a 5-10 minute walk to someone's commute, we need to save them 5-10 minutes somewhere else, or they're just not going to switch routes. The farther north the DRL goes, the more people there'll be who would prefer to switch back onto the YUS line and continue south (to King or Front or wherever). Of course, they won't switch twice, they'll still go through Yonge & Bloor.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Has anyone actually suggested running it south of Union aside from scenarios where a second line would run farther north?

 

[PSC]

See Scarberian's earlier post on how riders' willingness to walk would affect a Queen DRL's ridership:

Yes, I saw that post, and it's spot on except that it doesn't account for decisions based on rider comfort.

When I lived at Lawrence and Yonge and went to uni downtown, I'd take the bus because I'd get a seat all the way downtown; it added 10 minutes overall to the ride, but I didn't sweat in the winter and I would see the sun for the 10 minutes a day it was up. (I rode rush hour both ways, too.)

There's no way to reliably quantify that kind of behaviour, though.

 

[kEiThZ]

Has anyone actually suggested running it south of Union aside from scenarios where a second line would run farther north?

Nein. I don't know where that comes from.

Yes, I saw that post, and it's spot on except that it doesn't account for decisions based on rider comfort.

When I lived at Lawrence and Yonge and went to uni downtown, I'd take the bus because I'd get a seat all the way downtown; it added 10 minutes overall to the ride, but I didn't sweat in the winter and I would see the sun for the 10 minutes a day it was up. (I rode rush hour both ways, too.)

And if we screw up the DRL by prioritizing Queen riders over riders going through Yonge/Bloor then folks like yourself will have to keep on taking the bus. Get it right, and somebody south of Eglinton might actually get a seat once in a while ....

There's no way to reliably quantify that kind of behaviour, though.

True enough. But you are probably a rare exception. Ridership stats do give us the ground truth for the vast majority of situations.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Actually, it does account for comfort in that way, since it would allow people to choose which east/west corridor to approach the core from and could cut the walk after leaving the subway down to almost nothing.