Ontario Line North of Eglinton (was Relief Line North) (Speculation)

[Allandale25]

^ I didn't find it that biased. It's pretty normal when there is not a lot of details to speculate on the real geographic challenges any project faces. That's the point though of all the technical studies: you look at how to mitigate. It's not like the article said the challenges are impossible to overcome.

It's just meant to be a high level overview of the fundamental questions. It's the same for any transit project.

 

[pstogios]

^ I didn't find it that biased. It's pretty normal when there is not a lot of details to speculate on the real geographic challenges any project faces. That's the point though of all the technical studies: you look at how to mitigate. It's not like the article said the challenges are impossible to overcome.

It's just meant to be a high level overview of the fundamental questions. It's the same for any transit project.

It’s not that I’m questioning the technical challenges raised, I’m questioning that The Star even wrote this article given the fact that they *have not* written a similar article for the Relief Line.

To me, the reason why this article was written, and an equivalent one not written for the Relief Line, is purely to criticize something Doug Ford has proposed. That is transparently this paper’s agenda.

 

[syn]

It’s not that I’m questioning the technical challenges raised, I’m questioning that The Star even wrote this article given the fact that they *have not* written a similar article for the Relief Line.

To me, the reason why this article was written, and an equivalent one not written for the Relief Line, is purely to criticize something Doug Ford has proposed. That is transparently this paper’s agenda.

I think the difference is that the Relief Line was still being considered in terms of alignment, etc, and it was a lot smaller.

The Conservatives are putting forward this plan as something that's relatively set in stone.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

Pstogios does have a point. No articles were written about King vs. Queen or lambasting Council's initial desire for a City Hall station, and few articles were written about Pape vs Carlaw.

I'm waiting for the details of the Ontario Line to come out before critiquing. My thinking is that this proposal didn't come out of thin air and that Metrolinx has been doing some work behind the scenes.

At the end of the day, this proposal is a Relief Line of increased scope (really what Phase 1 should always have been) and with money committed to it. I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth just yet.

 

[jaybe]

While many of the points The Star writes are valid, the fact that they wrote this piece at all betrays their typical political bias. Have they written a similar smear piece on the technical challenges of the Relief Line, of which there are also many?

This isn’t a smear article. It is informative and outlines some of the challenges with the Ford proposal. The comments are legit. The one point they missed is the biggest cost associated with subway construction is the station boxes. Smaller trains mean smaller boxes which will be lower cost. Again, similar to a narrower tunnel, the savings will not be proportionate to the smaller size.

I bet if you searched through the Stars past issues you would final similar pieces about the DRL. This article is reasonable journalism.

 

[sixrings]

The star ripped parts of transit city. They are an equal opportunists when it comes to transit design but people forget because the last decade has had a conservative be mayor.

 

[W. K. Lis]

The star ripped parts of transit city. They are an equal opportunists when it comes to transit design but people forget because the last decade has had a conservative be mayor.

Have a look at the Supplementary report from the City Manager on Toronto Transit Expansion Program - Update and Next Steps (EX4.1d), link.

 

[thettctransitfanatic]

The star ripped parts of transit city. They are an equal opportunists when it comes to transit design but people forget because the last decade has had a conservative be mayor.

The Star is more bias towards the Libs, but it seems they want be bias to Ford now when it comes to Ontario Line.

 

[Haydenpoon]

On the province GGH Transportation Discussion Paper https://files.ontario.ca/mto-toward...ation-plan-discussion-paper-en-2021-06-29.pdf

It seems like they want to route the Ontario Line north to Sheppard, then Richmond Hill Centre, then head west to Pearson Airport

 

[Northern Light]

On the province GGH Transportation Discussion Paper https://files.ontario.ca/mto-toward...ation-plan-discussion-paper-en-2021-06-29.pdf

It seems like they want to route the Ontario Line north to Sheppard, then Richmond Hill Centre, then head west to Pearson Airport
View attachment 331186

This is a terrible map to put out to the public.

None of the lines have names or numbers, no major street names or reference points. Ugh. Communication 101, know your audience, speak with clarity.

I see the proposed O/L loop, except for how it connects back in at the south. Its not a loop if you don't close the circle.

 

[ARG1]

On the province GGH Transportation Discussion Paper https://files.ontario.ca/mto-toward...ation-plan-discussion-paper-en-2021-06-29.pdf

It seems like they want to route the Ontario Line north to Sheppard, then Richmond Hill Centre, then head west to Pearson Airport
View attachment 331186

This is a terrible map to put out to the public.

None of the lines have names or numbers, no major street names or reference points. Ugh. Communication 101, know your audience, speak with clarity.

I see the proposed O/L loop, except for how it connects back in at the south. Its not a loop if you don't close the circle.

So immediately this does raise some questions. Now as Northern Light pointed out, this is visual clutter, I cannot tell what they're trying to point to me here. This is partially important as when I first saw this image I thought the loop line would travel along Jane but ye it seems that they're pushing for the line to go to Pearson and then go back south and connect to Union... somehow. This of course then raises some questions about what that line on Jane is (since I doubt they're going to build an LRT there). The next big question then is what is that giant dotted line that casually crosses northern Toronto. I'd assume its the

• Exploring a new east-west, cross-regional connection between Burlington and Oshawa that connects existing GO Rail lines outside of Union Station.

thing that they mentioned in the document, but I always thought that this would be done via the 407 Transitway? This just looks like they drew a dotted line that just casually crashed through Mississauga, Richmond Hill, and Pickering.

On that note the entire 407 Transitway is completely missing, despite the fact that it still shows up in recent Metrolinx Documents and some EAs were still approved (I get that the central section lapsed, but somehow I have the feeling that the 407 Transitway between Jane and Leslie has been cut). As a whole its omission is quite concerning.

 

[ARG1]

Also for the people on the server who pull their hair out over the existence of YNSE:

https://imgur.com/e1vO5Ha

Hope this explains why its being built, as apparently Ontario now sees this as a "Union Station North" or some form of equivalent.

 

[EnviroTO]

I think the loop is this:

 

[Undead]

Is there really enough demand for metro line capacity between Pearson and RHC? And it would be great fodder for the fantasy map thread to know more about how the 407 Transitway, Pearson-RHC OL and non-Union GO line mesh with each other.

 

[Northern Light]

I think the loop is this:

View attachment 331190

I can see the idea; though that's not what they drew, of course.......

But, if that's true, as with much of that map, there are some serious questions about the 'how' even at the highest conceptual level.

There is no ROW available (rail, road or hydro) following that alignment.

You could, arguably, follow the rail ROW to Obico and use that go north to Kipling.

Then follow the Kipling Hydro Corridor to Eglinton, then shift there to hit the airport.

Bit awkward, ends up serving some odd locales en route and missing others.

But the alternative is deep tunneling.

****

If many of us here feel one of two potential 'Achilles heels' for the Ontario Line is capacity...........

How could one conceive of building the station sizes and train capacities they have and then build this route?

Very odd.