Ontario Line Extension West of Ontario Place (Speculation)

[W. K. Lis]

Just stop catering to cars.

Give the 501 every streetcar transit priority and keep cars out of the streetcar lanes. No more street parking on any streetcar route. You've instantly improved the reliability and speed of every route. Instantly create 5 LRT routes into downtown.

No need for branch routes of the OL when the 501 is handling 15k pphpd on the Queensway and Lakeshore.

We need a transit czar who will over-rule the dictates of the Transportation Roads Department, who refuse to give public transit priority. At the moment, the Transportation Roads Department only give transit non-priority traffic signal control. Why should three or four single-occupant automobiles making left turns to go first ahead of the 100+ on board the streetcars (or 300+ on the light rail vehicles).

 

[Rainforest]

For the next western high-capacity line into downtown, a Dufferin - Jane or Dufferin - Lawrence - Rexdale routing will likely attract higher ridership than a line along the lake could. However, I am not sure it should be built as a western extention of OL. OL at the Exhibition goes a bit too far south to get it back to Bloor and further north.

Instead, I would build a completely new line, that crosses downtown along Dundas, then follows Dufferin to somewhere north of Eglinton, and then swing west to Jane or further west to North Etobicoke. That will give brand new additional capacity into downtown, rather than adding to the already busy OL platforms and stairs. And the extra cost of new tunnel across downtown will be partly offset by not needing to tunnel under Dufferin all the way to the Exhibition. The new line will still serve Dufferin from College to north of Eglinton, and relief the busiest section of the Dufferin bus.

And for the western lakefront, as proposed by others in the thread. Either a shortcut for the 501 streetcar from Sunnyside to the Exhibition, or a surface / elevated extension of OL. If the choice is for the OL extension, then it does not need to go all the way to Kipling from the start; Phase 1 could just link to the 501 streetcar near High Park or at the Humber loop.

 

[W. K. Lis]

From link.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

For the next western high-capacity line into downtown, a Dufferin - Jane or Dufferin - Lawrence - Rexdale routing will likely attract higher ridership than a line along the lake could. However, I am not sure it should be built as a western extention of OL. OL at the Exhibition goes a bit too far south to get it back to Bloor and further north.

Instead, I would build a completely new line, that crosses downtown along Dundas, then follows Dufferin to somewhere north of Eglinton, and then swing west to Jane or further west to North Etobicoke. That will give brand new additional capacity into downtown, rather than adding to the already busy OL platforms and stairs. And the extra cost of new tunnel across downtown will be partly offset by not needing to tunnel under Dufferin all the way to the Exhibition. The new line will still serve Dufferin from College to north of Eglinton, and relief the busiest section of the Dufferin bus.

And for the western lakefront, as proposed by others in the thread. Either a shortcut for the 501 streetcar from Sunnyside to the Exhibition, or a surface / elevated extension of OL. If the choice is for the OL extension, then it does not need to go all the way to Kipling from the start; Phase 1 could just link to the 501 streetcar near High Park or at the Humber loop.

I think you an I largely see eye-to-eye on this. At least in terms of what we're trying to accomplish.

I made this map a few months back, when I was trying to figure out what direction we should take western Toronto transit.

I must admit that I really do prefer your idea of routing the new Downtown line along Dundas, north on Dufferin and then towards the northwest corner of the city. It would leave Dufferin between Exhibition and Dundas without rapid transit, but this idea does feel more viable.

Do keep in mind, though, that routing would necessitate extraordinarily high capacity. This route would be doing triple duty as a Dundas Subway, a Dufferin Subway and a Jane/Etobicoke Subway. Each of those segments on their own would be very well used, let alone when they're combined into one line.

The subway line on Dufferin alone could produce 15 to 20k pphpd. Rapid transit along Jane or towards Rexdale could easily add another 15k pphpd. The Dundas portion of the line would also see a very large number of boardings, as eastbound streetcar riders may prefer the new subway line to get downtown. The ridership would be scary high. These trains would resemble Elizabeth Line's 200 metre trains, more than our 140 metre Rockets or 100 metre Ontario Line trains.

It's enough to make me question whether or not concentrating so much ridership into one line is wise. The downstream impacts would have to be carefully considered. Eg, could the Downtown Yonge Line handle potentially tens of thousands of transfers from the Dundas Line per hour. Those commuters on the Dundas Line would need to transfer to Line 1 if they were going to destinations south of Queen.

 

[Rainforest]

The subway line on Dufferin alone could produce 15 to 20k pphpd. Rapid transit along Jane or towards Rexdale could easily add another 15k pphpd. The Dundas portion of the line would also see a very large number of boardings, as eastbound streetcar riders may prefer the new subway line to get downtown. The ridership would be scary high. These trains would resemble Elizabeth Line's 200 metre trains, more than our 140 metre Rockets or 100 metre Ontario Line trains.

It's enough to make me question whether or not concentrating so much ridership into one line is wise. The downstream impacts would have to be carefully considered. Eg, could the Downtown Yonge Line handle potentially tens of thousands of transfers from the Dundas Line per hour. Those commuters on the Dundas Line would need to transfer to Line 1 if they were going to destinations south of Queen.


View attachment 395815

@TigerMaster: I like your map, it is another viable configuration of rapid transit lines in the western half of the city.

However, I do not expect the ridership of the single diagonal line to be that dramatically high:

Dufferin's local demand is not that high by the subway standards. That demand only looks huge because it is currently served by buses and those buses have to run at a crazy frequency. But if you go to the pphpd counts: say a bus (70 nominal load) every 1 min (60 per hour), would be just 4,200 pphpd, peanuts for any rail line. A better transit would bring higher ridership, but I don't see it going to more than 7,000 pphpd or so.

Same goes for any other local segment, say Jane north, or Kipling north in Etobicoke. TTC has no transit line that isn't downtown-bound and clocks anywhere close to 10,000 pphpd; Eglinton will be first such line, and even then the current forecasts are under 8,000 pphpd for the first couple of decades.

Now, the downtown segment will be the main driver of ridership, working in the same manner as Yonge / Spadina / Bloor / Danforth. A busy downtown section where lots of riders want to go, plus long outer sections working as collectors. The total ridership will be very decent, but I don't see it dramatically higher than for the existing lines. It should beat the Spadina branch, but probably not Yonge.

If an exceptionally high latent demand for that diagonal line existed today, most of those riders would be taking the Spadina line or Bloor line, and overwhelm those; something we do not observe. Of course, there is an induced demand and the impact of population growth, it won't be just the same riders redistributed between more lines. But, given that 2 lines serving the north-western segment are doing OK today, I don't think 3 lines will have troubles meeting the demand in the next 20-30 years.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

@TigerMaster: I like your map, it is another viable configuration of rapid transit lines in the western half of the city.

However, I do not expect the ridership of the single diagonal line to be that dramatically high:

Dufferin's local demand is not that high by the subway standards. That demand only looks huge because it is currently served by buses and those buses have to run at a crazy frequency. But if you go to the pphpd counts: say a bus (70 nominal load) every 1 min (60 per hour), would be just 4,200 pphpd, peanuts for any rail line. A better transit would bring higher ridership, but I don't see it going to more than 7,000 pphpd or so.

Same goes for any other local segment, say Jane north, or Kipling north in Etobicoke. TTC has no transit line that isn't downtown-bound and clocks anywhere close to 10,000 pphpd; Eglinton will be first such line, and even then the current forecasts are under 8,000 pphpd for the first couple of decades.

Now, the downtown segment will be the main driver of ridership, working in the same manner as Yonge / Spadina / Bloor / Danforth. A busy downtown section where lots of riders want to go, plus long outer sections working as collectors. The total ridership will be very decent, but I don't see it dramatically higher than for the existing lines. It should beat the Spadina branch, but probably not Yonge.

If an exceptionally high latent demand for that diagonal line existed today, most of those riders would be taking the Spadina line or Bloor line, and overwhelm those; something we do not observe. Of course, there is an induced demand and the impact of population growth, it won't be just the same riders redistributed between more lines. But, given that 2 lines serving the north-western segment are doing OK today, I don't think 3 lines will have troubles meeting the demand in the next 20-30 years.

Latent demand is a notoriously difficult thing to figure out. Upgrading from a bus with low service quality, to a rapid transit line with a very high service quality totally changes the travel dynamics. We can't just look at current bus ridership, and extrapolate subway ridership from that. The fact that this subway line would put most of Dufferin within a 15 minute one-seat ride of Downtown changes everything.

A few things to keep in mind about the ridership we'd see on a Dufferin subway line (and I'm really only considering the segment of Dufferin roughly between Eglinton and Dundas):

• Population/Employment Densities:
  • Dufferin is amongst the densest areas in the city. A Dufferin subway line would be travelling through areas that are about as dense as the areas surrounding Line 2 between High Park and Victoria Park. We're not talking about some sleepy suburban area, this is already an incredibly dense area. Ridership will grow to fill whatever capacity we provide (to a point).
  • Let's compare Dufferin's densities to Crosstown West. That's a subway project that's travelling through areas that, generally speaking, don't even have half the population density we see on Dufferin. Despite that, it's expected that in excess of 9,000 pphpd will be travelling eastbound into Eglinton West station at peak. If the Eglinton Line can achieve such high usage, Dufferin can absolutely beat it.
  • Most of the Eglinton West corridor has borderline zero employment density. On the other hand, Dufferin has pretty high employment density, particularly south of St Clair and north of Eglinton. Employment is the primary driver of peak hour transit use, which dictates capacity requirements. This is another strong indication that this Dufferin Subway ridership would far exceed the 9,000 pphpd reidership we see on Crosstown West.
  • Unlike the Eglinton Line, the subway on Dufferin you propose would travel directly into the Downtown core. That's going to induce a ton of peak-hour oriented trips to the core of the city, which is something that the Eglinton Line will not experience (ridership on the Eglinton Line in general is expected to be far less peak hour-oriented than we see on Line 1 and Line 2).
  • Another point of comparison is Line 4. That's a 5 km subway line travelling through some of the least dense areas of the city, that doesn't connect to the Downtown core. It's peak hour ridership is 4,000 pphpd. Given that the the Dufferin subway is twice the length, has several times the population/employment density and actually connects to Downtown, it would surely blow Line 4 away in terms of ridership. Likely several times over
• Regional Travel Patterns:
  • The Dufferin Subway would be a regional transit line, and it's introduction would have regional implications. So these need to be considered as well.
  • Looking at the Eglinton West LRT again, that line is expected to produce 5,000 transfers southbound on Line 1 at peak hour. Given that Eglinton-Dufferin Station would be a more convenient transfer point for southbound commuters, we can expect most of those commuters to transfer to Dufferin instead. Roughly speaking, I'd imagine we'd see 3,000 southbound passengers from Eglinton Line alone.
  • Line 2 will produce a huge number of southbound transfers onto the Dufferin Subway. Pretty much anyone on Line 2 living west of Ossington and headed to the Downtown core would be better off taking the Dufferin Subway to get downtown. The transfer volume would be enormous, and Bloor-Dufferin Station would almost immediately become one of the busiest transfer points in the city. Another 5,000 southbound transfers onto Dufferin seems like a reasonable expectation.
  • The Dufferin Subway would connect to the St Clair, College and Dundas Streetcars. We'd see a lot of transfers from those lines as well.

So in short, a subway on Dufferin would be travelling through some of the densest areas of the city, would connect directly to the Downtown core, and would induce a huge number of transfers from some of the most heavily used transit corridors in the city. I hope you can begin to see why I expect ridership to be so high. 15,000 pphpd seems like a very modest expectation for the Eglinton to Dundas segment of the line.

And I'm saying all this without even considering the enormous intensification this subway would bring. Despite its terrible bus service, Dufferin is already among the densest corridors in the city, and it's seeing even more intensification on top of that. A new subway line would kick that intensification into overdrive. A subway line putting Dufferin within 15 mins of Downtown would immediately make this street one of the most attractive in the city to live and work. Huge residential developments would continue to materialize along the corridor, and I we'd likely see some modest office intensification as well (likely at the Bloor-Dufferin intersection, and around the areas of the line closest to Downtown).

The areas of Dufferin north of Eglinton deserves some attention as well. It's an area that already has extremely high employment density. Given that the lots fronting Dufferin Street largely just consists of strip malls, this area is primed to see enormous intensification, both in terms of population and jobs. It's proximity to the 401 would make this area particularly attractive to for employers and residences as well. Given the proximity to the 401, given the addition of a subway line, given the relative ease of intensification in the area, and given relatively short ride to the Downtown core (about 25 mins), this section of Dufferin is primed to essentially develop into a second North York Centre. The intensification potential here is enough to make me consider whether its worth extending any Dufferin subway line north to Yorkdale or Wilson, despite the proximity to the Spadina Line.

Also, the Dufferin segment is just one segment of the line you've proposed. That line would also be hitting Downtown, Dundas Street, Dufferin Street, Jane and potentially reaching Rexdale. This line would need the capacity necessary to absorb the ridership produced by all those areas. I could go into more detail about that, but I think 1000 words is enough for tonight

 

[asher__jo]

Dufferin has tons of opportunity for densification with OL , especially if the street is gently densified south of Eglinton (4-6 story midrise).

 

[Deadpool X]

Pickering is actually 14km further than square one or more than 50% longer.

Square one is far more comparable to Vaughan only .9km longer. Somehow municipal boundaries were not a factor there or in further Richmond Hill.

I did mention about the distances and suggested that distance wasn't the major factor. Municipal boundaries are the major factor because York Region paid for subway to Vaughan, not the City of Toronto. If Mississauga doesn't want to pay for subway, then it won't get one.

 

[Ward8]

I made this map a few months back, when I was trying to figure out what direction we should take western Toronto transit.

A lot of good ideas on your map! I could also see a OL extension that is a combination of the blue and purple lines on your map. Something that turns at the Galleria development and stops in the junction and a future stockyards re-development. Could be a good compromise if a second line isn't in the cards.

 

[Jaye101]

A lot of good ideas on your map! I could also see a OL extension that is a combination of the blue and purple lines on your map. Something that turns at the Galleria development and stops in the junction and a future stockyards re-development. Could be a good compromise if a second line isn't in the cards.

I made this map several years ago before the Exhibition routing was chosen. Dufferin-Jane alignment for the OL West.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I made this map several years ago before the Exhibition routing was chosen. Dufferin-Jane alignment for the OL West.

I would very much like this for Christmas. Make it happen, Doug!

 

[Leo_Chan]

I would very much like this for Christmas. Make it happen, Doug!

With a monorail to connect Liberty Village, Exhibition, and Ontario Place!

 

[Jaye101]

So the Dufferin-Jane alignment in that scenario with current plans in mind:

Exhibition (Lakeshore West GO)
King-Dufferin
Queen-Dufferin
Dundas-Dufferin
College-Dufferin
Bloor-Dufferin (Line 2)
Dupont-Dufferin
St Clair-Dufferin
Earlscourt (Barrie GO @ Caledonia-St Clair)
Rogers Road
Keele-Eglinton (Line 5)
Trethewey
Jane-Lawrence (Kitchener GO, UPX)
Jane-Wilson
Jane-Sheppard
Jane-Finch (Line 7)


South of Lawrence most of the proposed Jane LRT riders have the alternative of using Line 5 at Eglinton, or Line 2 at Bloor. I would argue that this scenario better serves Jane riders than alternatives.

29 Dufferin riders North of St Clair have access to Line 5 @ Fairbank. North of Eglinton on Dufferin, Line 1 is close-by.

I do believe that this line will satisfy the need for a higher order of transit on Dufferin and Jane entirely. But that's simply my opinion, would be interesting to see such a route studied.

 

[MrGoose]

So the Dufferin-Jane alignment in that scenario with current plans in mind:

Exhibition (Lakeshore West GO)
King-Dufferin
Queen-Dufferin
Dundas-Dufferin
College-Dufferin
Bloor-Dufferin (Line 2)
Dupont-Dufferin
St Clair-Dufferin
Earlscourt (Barrie GO @ Caledonia-St Clair)
Rogers Road
Keele-Eglinton (Line 5)
Trethewey
Jane-Lawrence (Kitchener GO, UPX)
Jane-Wilson
Jane-Sheppard
Jane-Finch (Line 7)


South of Lawrence most of the proposed Jane LRT riders have the alternative of using Line 5 at Eglinton, or Line 2 at Bloor. I would argue that this scenario better serves Jane riders than alternatives.

29 Dufferin riders North of St Clair have access to Line 5 @ Fairbank. North of Eglinton on Dufferin, Line 1 is close-by.

I do believe that this line will satisfy the need for a higher order of transit on Dufferin and Jane entirely. But that's simply my opinion, would be interesting to see such a route studied.

I feel like this line should connect to Line 1 at York U

 

[M II A II R II K]

King and Queen as well as Dundas and College could share one station between them.