Metrolinx: UK Madrid Tour Report

[Edward]

But you then run into the problems that we have today with the Yonge line where we have to spend a lot of money expanding Union. And we're still having to deal with the fact that Yonge/Bloor is too small for today's use. I'm glad, for example, that they put the middle platform in at Yonge/Sheppard even if it isn't used today.

How much more expensive would the Danforth line had been if the guys building the Bloor Viaduct hadn't allowed for a train? A train that didn't come for 45 years after the bridge was built.

 

[JasonParis]

Although, you can always run 4-car trains (like on Sheppard) until demand warrants higher. London complete regrets the size of their tunneling (although that was due more to the technology limits of the time, rather than cost rationalizing).

 

[nfitz]

Although, you can always run 4-car trains (like on Sheppard) until demand warrants higher. London completely regrets the size of their tunneling (although that was due more to the technology limits of the time, rather than cost rationalizing).

150 years later they may regret it - though that didn't stop them using it on the Jubilee line, which didn't start construction until the 1970s. They could have used Toronto-size diameters on that line. The new solution for London is full-sized subway tunnels carrying RER-like trains (Crossrail and Thameslink). But you get that for capacity, and then the smaller tubes. If you'd built huge tubes to begin with, you'd only have a handful of them now, rather than the bigger system that exists. Build what you need now, and build more and bigger when you need them.

 

[afransen]

I kinda doubt that the diameter of the tunnel is actually the huge cost driver you suggest it is. Aren't stations a massive chunk of the cost as it is, and their cost is largely independent of tunnel diameter?