superelevation
Active Member
A subway has a lot more potential travel time benefits than LRT (at least the way we are building them), so obviously its more attractive/.
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Eglinton East LRT | Metrolinx
- Thread starter W. K. Lis
- Start date
Rainforest
Senior Member
I browsed the report one more time. Something is fishy with their ridership modeling.
Intuitively, EELRT should result in a ridership growth. That line is going to be in the right place, with multiple connection to transit backbones: Kennedy Subway, Eglinton GO, Guildwood GO, Sheppard / McCowan subway. The Eglinton East segment is a busy transit corridor already, and can add more density. The line would serve multiple origin-destination pairs:
- Commuters from the residential along Eglinton and Kingston towards Kennedy, or towards one of the GO stations.
- Students living near Eglinton towards UTSC.
- Riders from the Sheppard line towards UTSC.
- Commuters from Malvern to Sheppard / McCowan subway.
But the report doesn't predict that, and it makes odd statements about the ridership forecasts. On Page 25, they write "Current ridership modelling suggests that the base case attracts a higher forecasted network-wide ridership than the Eglinton East LRT by approximately 4,700 passengers per day in 2041. Further work defining the local bus network to complement the Eglinton East LRT may result in higher ridership for the LRT scenario."
Why not complete that further work before publishing the report? This is not some minor detail to be sorted out later. This is the key selling point of the whole project. If there is no ridership growth, then many other "pro" points become questionable at best. I am looking at Table 1 on Page 5. Healthy Neibourhoods: how, by reducing the transit ridership? Supports Growth: growth means new residents, how will they travel if not by transit? Et cetera.
Then in the footnote on the same Page 25, they write: "The Eglinton East LRT is estimated to have a peak period, peak direction (PPPD) ridership demand of 12,000 (LRT and parallel bus services combined), suggesting that a higher-order transit service is needed in the Eglinton East corridor." Is this 12,000 per hour? Or per the whole peak period, ~ 3 hours?
If their forecast is 12,000 per hour, that's many times more than all the Eglinton East buses carry today, and therefore totally contradicts their statement earlier on the same page that the ridership will decrease. (And honestly I don't think that's possible; 12,000 is way more than on any other surface transit corridor in Toronto.)
If they are expecting 12,000 per 3 hours = 4,000 per hour, that's reasonable, but even that exceeds the current ridership of Eglinton East, and is inconsistent with their statement about the ridership decrease.
Intuitively, EELRT should result in a ridership growth. That line is going to be in the right place, with multiple connection to transit backbones: Kennedy Subway, Eglinton GO, Guildwood GO, Sheppard / McCowan subway. The Eglinton East segment is a busy transit corridor already, and can add more density. The line would serve multiple origin-destination pairs:
- Commuters from the residential along Eglinton and Kingston towards Kennedy, or towards one of the GO stations.
- Students living near Eglinton towards UTSC.
- Riders from the Sheppard line towards UTSC.
- Commuters from Malvern to Sheppard / McCowan subway.
But the report doesn't predict that, and it makes odd statements about the ridership forecasts. On Page 25, they write "Current ridership modelling suggests that the base case attracts a higher forecasted network-wide ridership than the Eglinton East LRT by approximately 4,700 passengers per day in 2041. Further work defining the local bus network to complement the Eglinton East LRT may result in higher ridership for the LRT scenario."
Why not complete that further work before publishing the report? This is not some minor detail to be sorted out later. This is the key selling point of the whole project. If there is no ridership growth, then many other "pro" points become questionable at best. I am looking at Table 1 on Page 5. Healthy Neibourhoods: how, by reducing the transit ridership? Supports Growth: growth means new residents, how will they travel if not by transit? Et cetera.
Then in the footnote on the same Page 25, they write: "The Eglinton East LRT is estimated to have a peak period, peak direction (PPPD) ridership demand of 12,000 (LRT and parallel bus services combined), suggesting that a higher-order transit service is needed in the Eglinton East corridor." Is this 12,000 per hour? Or per the whole peak period, ~ 3 hours?
If their forecast is 12,000 per hour, that's many times more than all the Eglinton East buses carry today, and therefore totally contradicts their statement earlier on the same page that the ridership will decrease. (And honestly I don't think that's possible; 12,000 is way more than on any other surface transit corridor in Toronto.)
If they are expecting 12,000 per 3 hours = 4,000 per hour, that's reasonable, but even that exceeds the current ridership of Eglinton East, and is inconsistent with their statement about the ridership decrease.
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ARG1
Senior Member
Honestly, if we ignore my whole theory of SSE drawing away a ton of the demand off the corridor for my second, this in general kinda is kinda the problem with ridership forecasts in Toronto as a whole. We simply suck at accurately predicting ridership numbers, and we routinely underestimate the numbers we end up getting.
duffo
Active Member
Whoever put together this business case frankly bungled it. I'd imagine the TTC was unwilling to provide a conceptual re-designed bus network which prevented the consultant from properly accounting for re-allocation of bus service and improved local frequencies feeding into the LRT. Plus, it is true that the RapidTO lanes are likely comparable in speed to the LRT if it operates like the ECLRT or dedicated-ROW streetcars. Benefits like reliability and capacity are harder to quantify. The results of this business case literally say that EELRT will be quantitatively worse than the base case in almost every metric. I can see these creating a lot of fodder for opposition to this project, when a proper modelling and business case approach would have avoided all of this and better estimated project benefits.
innsertnamehere
Superstar
I mean ultimately it's just a crappy project. Call it by what it is. It's ultimately going to be too slow to be useful, and that's why ridership is poor, most bus riders will be better off connecting to the Subway further west than transferring to the LRT then transferring again at Kennedy. It's a local transit solution to a regional transit problem.
Northern Light
Superstar
Ok...I read the business case..............I gave it some thought.............hear me out on a wacky idea............LOL
The line should not run from Kennedy Station, it creates too many operational hassles or financial costs.
Instead; build the missing station on the SSE at Brimley/Danforth. Run the EELRT from that station, you can do an underground connection to the mezzanine (I would) as it allows you to have the line skip the traffic lights at both
Brimley and Danforth.
But you can purpose-build the connection as shallow as plausible to lower the cost.
This reduces travel distance of the line by 1.4km and avoids the need to get in/around the SSE/Kennedy Stn/GO Line.
It eliminates (potentially) 3-5 traffic lit intersections through which the LRT would have to travel.
This produces a time savings in the range 6-8 minutes (gross) I would think (per direction) making the line much more competitive. (4-6 minutes net to travel to Kennedy by subway)
The cost savings of removing 1.4km of line should come close to offsetting the new subway station which I would estimate to be 300-400M in cost. (maybe less if we can do through a change-order before the SSE is under full construction that that location.
The line should not run from Kennedy Station, it creates too many operational hassles or financial costs.
Instead; build the missing station on the SSE at Brimley/Danforth. Run the EELRT from that station, you can do an underground connection to the mezzanine (I would) as it allows you to have the line skip the traffic lights at both
Brimley and Danforth.
But you can purpose-build the connection as shallow as plausible to lower the cost.
This reduces travel distance of the line by 1.4km and avoids the need to get in/around the SSE/Kennedy Stn/GO Line.
It eliminates (potentially) 3-5 traffic lit intersections through which the LRT would have to travel.
This produces a time savings in the range 6-8 minutes (gross) I would think (per direction) making the line much more competitive. (4-6 minutes net to travel to Kennedy by subway)
The cost savings of removing 1.4km of line should come close to offsetting the new subway station which I would estimate to be 300-400M in cost. (maybe less if we can do through a change-order before the SSE is under full construction that that location.
rbt
Senior Member
That's an interesting variation.
I've wondered if something closer to the SRT current corridor would be more useful. Build a new GO station at Ellesmere and an elevated line east to the Line 2 Scarborough Centre station (at McCowan), then follow Ellesmere east until Military Trail. IMO, a GO connection will be viewed as more useful than a TTC subway connection in the next decade; strong GO service (with price parity?) will rapidly replace subways for much of the backbone network; but connecting to both is best.
I tend to think Kingston Road itself is better off with a busway: abundant stops with smaller and more frequent vehicles.
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JBR
Active Member
Wow someone with a similar idea that I’ve always had.
I have always thought there should be a SSE station at Danforth or Brimley. I was disappointed when Mattamy decided to build stacked towns at the former Caddy’s and not high rises…
As for the LRT…This is a great idea. Big cost savings. If there is going to be a transfer at Kennedy anyways between 5&7 then why not transfer to the subway and get over to Brimley much quicker. Having taken buses along this stretch of Eglinton many many times I can safely say not many people get off between Midland and Brimley anyways. Now, there is huge opportunity for condos on this stretch BUT Brimley would not be a long walk to these properties, and obviously there would still be buses supplementing this stretch.
Northern Light
Superstar
ARG1
Senior Member
My big issue with this idea is, say you're travelling from Line 5 to this new Eglinton East LRT. So you have to transfer to Line 2, then in 1km transfer again to this new LRT? All whilst travelling along the exact same street?
Northern Light
Superstar
Fair, that's a bit of a hassle, I concede.
It really begs the question how substantial that travel pattern is of wanting to go from one side of Kennedy to the other, along Eglinton, with no interest in the Line 2 connection.
I don't have those numbers; if they are substantial, that's an issue; if they are a small minority of riders, its an unfortunate problem for them.
Rainforest
Senior Member
In this case, we might have a crappy report, rather than a crappy project.
I agree that transferring from a local bus to LRT first, and then to subway at Kennedy, is an added hassle and will not appeal to the riders.
However, nearly all bus branches that operate in the Eg East corridor today, and serve streets that will have no LRT, can be sent directly to the subway. The bus to LRT transfer can be avoided. And if TTC doesn't want parallel bus service on Eglinton (LRT + bus is too much), then those buses can be routed to another subway station via Sheppard, Ellesmere, Lawrence, or Kingston Rd + St Clair. With the added benefit of improving the bus frequency on those streets.
If those who created the report chose to ignore such options and not model them, that's their problem. Doesn't necessarily condemn the project.
whatever
Senior Member
That traffic pattern (along Eglinton, through Kennedy, to points west) is hard to assess because it doesn't really exist yet. We won't know the demand for that pattern until after Line 5 opens (and possibly, not until the OL connects with the Science Centre station)
If we're doing fantasy alignments, I'd elevate the GO tracks over Eglinton at Kennedy (maybe using the SRT corridor?), bring Eglinton Ave E back down to grade, leave the SSE underground as is the plan, and give Eglinton East LRT an in-median platform with underground pedestrian connection to the rest of the transit complex. But the cost and disruption of that would be enormous.
Edit: And actually, if we're going for pure fantasy, I'd have a portal immediately west of the in-median surface platform, with tail tracks diving underground to connect with the Line 5 tracks below grade. With no intention of offering revenue service; it'd be there strictly to allow for movements between the two lines and also as a storage track for either/both lines
If we're doing fantasy alignments, I'd elevate the GO tracks over Eglinton at Kennedy (maybe using the SRT corridor?), bring Eglinton Ave E back down to grade, leave the SSE underground as is the plan, and give Eglinton East LRT an in-median platform with underground pedestrian connection to the rest of the transit complex. But the cost and disruption of that would be enormous.
Edit: And actually, if we're going for pure fantasy, I'd have a portal immediately west of the in-median surface platform, with tail tracks diving underground to connect with the Line 5 tracks below grade. With no intention of offering revenue service; it'd be there strictly to allow for movements between the two lines and also as a storage track for either/both lines
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Rainforest
Senior Member
Or, maybe that's the TTC's firm position - "we want to cut the bus service hours and we will only run the buses to the closest LRT stop" ..
If this is the case, then indeed there is no point building this LRT. Keep the curb lanes, or build a median BRT; this preserves the bus branches.
If this is the case, then indeed there is no point building this LRT. Keep the curb lanes, or build a median BRT; this preserves the bus branches.
duffo
Active Member
For the cost of building an entirely dedicated LRT system (including OMSF), pegged at $4B, why not just keep the RapidTO lanes and run an elevated extension of Line 4? Much easier to use existing/planned TR facilities. Hits Malvern and UTSC and includes direct connection to GO at Agincourt to whisk you downtown. (This plan assumes that Line 4 is already being extended out to McCowan)
