sixrings
Senior Member
just a question but why not add more streetcar lines downtown. adelaide, richmond, front? on richmond and adelaide, couldnt they make it a side of the road row because they are one way streets????
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Downtown Rapid Transit Expansion Study
- Thread starter Ansem
- Start date
MisterF
Senior Member
They are being kept separate. Union will be well served by the GO lines, especially after they're electrified and fares are integrated. Building a subway line along the same corridor would be pointless duplication and a waste of money. But even the best GO service won't fully relieve Bloor-Yonge (the transfer at Main St is problematic and too far east) or provide rapid transit to the parts of downtown that are currently stuck with hopelessly unreliable streetcars.
That's what a Queen (or King) subway line would do. A line along one of those streets, veering north to Pape, would do the best job at relieving Union and bringing rapid transit to the part of the city that needs it most. It would serve the Financial district just fine, even if it follows Queen. The northern part of the district, buildings like Scotia Plaza and the Bay-Adelaide Centre, are closer to Queen than they are to Union. And don't forget that there's a lot of employment north of Queen too - yet another line to Union wouldn't do those buildings much good.
The experts say otherwise. As nfitz showed, Metrolinx estimates that even the DRL going from Bloor to Downtown to Bloor would be an instant success and the busiest subway line per kilometre in the city. No doubt it would bring in major profits. And Pape to downtown would likely be the busier half of that line. It makes sense - it would go through some of the densest parts of the city, with the slowest transit. This is exactly where subway lines should be built and are the most successful.
kkgg7
Banned
What you said makes sense, but the different purpose of Queen line and DRL don't necessarily conflict.
1) Front is hardly any closer to King than Queen. plus, many people work north of Queen as well. Queen is a better balance
2) your said issue can be resolved by having longer spacing outside downtown, and have 500-800meter spacing on Downtown Queen. Instead of stopping at each stop all the time, the DRL can easily stop only at major intersections during peak hours skipping smaller stations but at all stops off-peak. NYC subways do it all the time.
It would be nice to have one on Front and Queen each, but ...
nfitz
Superstar
The pedestrian traffic around Union is already a disaster in rush-hour. It will only get worse with Union Station capacity supposed to increase. There's no need to dump more pedestrians down there, much further south than many go. Dundas station seems almost busier than King in rush-hour ... and busier than Union. A DRL should intersect either King/St. Andrew or Queen/Osgood stations. Whether it accomplishes this by going down Wellington or Richmond is up for debate ... but the last place it should go is down Front.
M II A II R II K
Senior Member
It could also go up to Cosburne and hit another dense neighbourhood.
For the DRL West, I agree, GO does serve that market very well. But for the east, I'm not so sure. It doesn't connect to B-D until Main St, which is too far east to be useful for a lot of people.
As for the duplication, I don't think that a subway line that follows a rail line for only a stretch is necessarily a duplication of service, especially when there aren't any stops planned for the areas along the rail line. Is the rail corridor of any benefit to the St. Lawrence area? Will it ever be? Probably not, as they're not going to build a GO station that close to Union. A DRL station though, it's probably about the right stop spacing between there and the CBD.
If you really don't want duplication, the other option is to build the DRL along the rail corridor until Parliament, and then run it up Parliament to Castle Frank. The area around Parliament is more likely to be densified than Queen is anyway.
I don't think that Queen St needs a full subway, especially if the DRL is built further south. I'll say it again, Queen St is a local street that needs local stop spacing in order to be effective. This leads me to believe that something like what is being built on Eglinton is more suitable for Queen. Even in the late 1940s plan, Yonge had a subway and Queen had a streetcar subway.
I see the Queen LRT subway running from around Broadview to Roncesvalles, where it would then go surface as the Queensway LRT. A branch of it would head south along Lakeshore, and another branch would continue west along the Queensway to Sherway. That's the function I see the Queen LRT performing, not as a relief line, but as a line serving the neighbourhoods around Queen St.
I agree, which is why I'm on record on here several times saying that I prefer a Wellington alignment, as it would offer 3 transfer points and split up the pedestrian traffic exiting from the line.
It's 1 block closer. And I prefer a Wellington alignment for the DRL, which could conceivably have exits onto King proper.
The problem is that all of Queen is like downtown Queen. The entire street needs local stop spacing, because the street was designed as a streetcar street. Spacing like on Bloor is what is needed. Anything larger would be detrimental to the street life.
And having trains only stop at certain stations would require 4 tracking, something that would be very expensive. If you wanted to combine them and do 4 track LRT, that may be something to consider, but a 4 track subway would be overkill.
Given the projected increase in density and population in the downtown area, it may not be as outlandish as you think. As I put before in the Union X plan that I posted a couple pages ago, a Yonge line serving the western waterfront and a Queen LRT serving the increased density between Queen and the rail corridor could be viable given the right increase in density.
unimaginative2
Senior Member
Queen just doesn't make sense for the DRL. It's well north of existing development at King and Bay, has poor PATH connections, and is completely useless to the vast new developments going on south of Union. East and west of downtown, it's even worse. Subway stations are ideal locations for major new development an intensification--the kind of thing that's happening all along Front and the rail corridor. Re-development and intensification is exactly what we don't want in the stable and unique neighbourhoods along Queen.
Wellington is a reasonable solution, though it would be more costly and arguably do a poorer job of serving the East Bayfront than running the line along the rail corridor east of Yonge.
Wellington is a reasonable solution, though it would be more costly and arguably do a poorer job of serving the East Bayfront than running the line along the rail corridor east of Yonge.
M II A II R II K
Senior Member
Any new line is better than no line!
Memph
Active Member
Sorry if this has been brought up already (haven't read the whole thread), but how good of a job would adding stops along the Lakeshore East line (especially after electrification) do for relieving Yonge and Danforth and serving the Eastside? You could have stops at Parliament, Queen E, Gerrard E or Coxwell.
andrewpmk
Senior Member
The idea of Queen is that the rail corridor would have high frequency GO service, so building along Queen would avoid duplicating the rail corridor. Also it would reduce overcrowding on the King/Queen/Dundas streetcars, and serve the Eaton Centre (a big source of Yonge line overcrowding in my experience).
CDL.TO
Moderator
The frequency of trains on the rail corridor is irrelevant if there aren't the same number of stations that a subway line would have. Trains passing through Fort York, CityPlace, East Bayfront, West Donlands, Distillery, and Queen East without stopping offers no relief to those neighbourhoods.
I'm not saying that a Front/rail corridor alignment is the best choice. I'm just saying that other rail services on the rail corridor isn't a valid argument against it.
Also, the Yonge line is overcrowded well before the Eaton Centre opens each day at 10:00am.
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dunkalunk
Senior Member
Instead of buying artics for finch, I wonder if it would be possible to buy some Alexander-Dennis double deckers? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Dennis_Enviro500
Both OC Transpo and GO already own these vehicles and since GO already has a garage for these, perhaps they could contract out maintenance and storage in the short term while these buses go through trial operating on the TTC.
From what I understand, purchasing artics would be barely worth the ticket price when you consider their increased maintenance costs, reduced service life, and wider turn requirements when compared to a standard one-section bus. If a new maintenance facility is also required, than the cost of running artics could be prohibitive.
Both OC Transpo and GO already own these vehicles and since GO already has a garage for these, perhaps they could contract out maintenance and storage in the short term while these buses go through trial operating on the TTC.
From what I understand, purchasing artics would be barely worth the ticket price when you consider their increased maintenance costs, reduced service life, and wider turn requirements when compared to a standard one-section bus. If a new maintenance facility is also required, than the cost of running artics could be prohibitive.
Justin10000
Banned
Double Deckers take longer than single level buses to load/unload dwell times would increase.
Nick.
Banned
OC Transpo is mostly using the double deckers for express routes, I believe. And yes they do take much longer to load and unload, especially if people actually follow the instructions not to use the stairs while the bus is moving.