Sheppard Line 4 Subway Extension (Proposed)

[44 North]

I don't even know what you are suggesting now its all over the place. If the shepherd subway is extended it makes sense to keep it as TTC gauge subways so that it can connect with Wilson yard in the west so that it could be used to transfer trains from one side of the line to another instead of having to go through the Bloor Danforth line as they would now if there was a problem with a section of the line.

The goal as proposed is to go east. It's unfunded, uncosted, and little more than a concept on a map. Going west to Downsview is a separate concept, even further intangible, and very far into the future. All told that's about 12km, and I guess roughly $8bn in today's dollars. There's merit to close the loop with northern access to Wilson, sure. But didn't seem like it was listed in the City or TTC's official plans going into the next decades, so how much merit.

My suggestion is pretty clear: build subway-level rapid transit across Sheppard, but more affordable/realistic than 6-car legacy subway.

 

[Rainforest]

A smaller footprint / more agile technology will help extend this line beyond the immediate targets. Converted to mini metro, it could eventually connect to the Lakeshore East service in the east, and reach Rexdale or Pearson in the west.

If the Sheppard gets extended as a full-scale subway, that's fine if it is never expected to go past McCowan in the east and past Jane in the west.

Extensions beyond McCowan and Jane wouldn't follow Sheppard, and would need to handle tight turns. That means, they would probably never happen if the wide-body subway technology is retained.

 

[BB ON]

Heavy metro favours fewer stops and wider spacing, but this necessarily means serving some spots at the expense of others. For example, do you place a stop at Consumers because it's a big employment area, or Vic Park because it's a major crossroads? Similarly, do you place the stop at Kennedy or Agincourt GO? It's a long walk for the other.

Sheppard's low density and the spacing of major roads makes it really awkward to serve with heavy metro. At least with the LRT plan, it was trivial to locally serve all these locations.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Heavy metro favours fewer stops and wider spacing, but this necessarily means serving some spots at the expense of others. For example, do you place a stop at Consumers because it's a big employment area, or Vic Park because it's a major crossroads? Similarly, do you place the stop at Kennedy or Agincourt GO? It's a long walk for the other.

Sheppard's low density and the spacing of major roads makes it really awkward to serve with heavy metro. At least with the LRT plan, it was trivial to locally serve all these locations.

Could also mean that the Willowdale Station could make an appearance, if they did? If they can get past the NIMBY snobs around that proposed station.

From link.

No station was built at the intersection of Yonge and Willowdale, one kilometre east, due to community opposition and the fact that the densities in the area are not suitable for such a station. Provisions have been made for one to be built in the future, however.

Wonder if the "density" around the possible Willowdale Station has increased?

Sheppard & Willowdale. Missing station...

From link.

 

[ARG1]

Heavy metro favours fewer stops and wider spacing, but this necessarily means serving some spots at the expense of others. For example, do you place a stop at Consumers because it's a big employment area, or Vic Park because it's a major crossroads? Similarly, do you place the stop at Kennedy or Agincourt GO? It's a long walk for the other.

Why not both in those cases?

Sheppard's low density and the spacing of major roads makes it really awkward to serve with heavy metro. At least with the LRT plan, it was trivial to locally serve all these locations.

Actually its the opposite. With low density areas, people want and need to travel much farther distances. As such - this makes LRT extremely unattractive as a mode because it ends up being way too slow for what most people need, and if the mode is way too slow, more people will be taking the car. Adding extra stops makes this worse as you're spending more time at stations rather than travelling. This is why if we look at systems like Viva, despite being a mode where tight stops are quite possible, they purposefully put stations and stops every km or so - it fits better with what people need from transit in such low density areas.

 

[duffo]

Heavy metro favours fewer stops and wider spacing, but this necessarily means serving some spots at the expense of others. For example, do you place a stop at Consumers because it's a big employment area, or Vic Park because it's a major crossroads?

Both - they are 700m apart and its decently dense near Consumers.

Similarly, do you place the stop at Kennedy or Agincourt GO? It's a long walk for the other.

It's only 400m between the two, which is not a long walk. Could do something similar to Kennedy Station, locate the station in between Kennedy and Agincourt GO, with short tunnels either to an entrance fronting Kennedy or to the GO platforms (depending on where it is located specifically).

 

[afransen]

Heavy metro favours fewer stops and wider spacing, but this necessarily means serving some spots at the expense of others. For example, do you place a stop at Consumers because it's a big employment area, or Vic Park because it's a major crossroads? Similarly, do you place the stop at Kennedy or Agincourt GO? It's a long walk for the other.

Sheppard's low density and the spacing of major roads makes it really awkward to serve with heavy metro. At least with the LRT plan, it was trivial to locally serve all these locations.

Seems like it would be better to use buses for local service and higher average speed/larger stop spacing to encourage longer distance trips to switch from cars.

 

[afransen]

Both - they are 700m apart and its decently dense near Consumers.
View attachment 381091

It's only 400m between the two, which is not a long walk. Could do something similar to Kennedy Station, locate the station in between Kennedy and Agincourt GO, with short tunnels either to an entrance fronting Kennedy or to the GO platforms (depending on where it is located specifically).

Could also goose the spacing between the two by putting a station a bit west of Consumers and and bit east of Vic Park.

I think we should be trying to make the connections with GO easier, not adding 5 minute walks.

 

[Irishmonk]

I've oftened fantasized about the possibility of connecting the extended Shepherd Line with the Ontario Line to create what I term The Great Circle Line, with Jane and V.P. as the likely north/south connecters. The Jane portion could go under High Park to connect align with the OL on Queen. At Don Mills the OL would need to angle east to eventually hook up with V.P. (Granted that would necessitate a fairly long curve at Shep and VP.) A Sheppard LRT could run east from VP the rest of t he way along Sheppard, eventually terminating at the Toronto Zoo.

I expect it would cost in the neighborhood of 40-50B dollars which effectively kills the very notion of its existence but it would be pretty cool

 

[Rainforest]

I've oftened fantasized about the possibility of connecting the extended Shepherd Line with the Ontario Line to create what I term The Great Circle Line, with Jane and V.P. as the likely north/south connecters. The Jane portion could go under High Park to connect align with the OL on Queen. At Don Mills the OL would need to angle east to eventually hook up with V.P. (Granted that would necessitate a fairly long curve at Shep and VP.) A Sheppard LRT could run east from VP the rest of t he way along Sheppard, eventually terminating at the Toronto Zoo.

I expect it would cost in the neighborhood of 40-50B dollars which effectively kills the very notion of its existence but it would be pretty cool

Even if the cost was not an issue, the route would have to avoid High Park. There is a high-pressure aquifer under the surface there; don't think any tunneled transit line can coexist with it:

Laurentian River in High Park – High Park Nature

highparknature.org

If the Ontario Line is ever extended west from the Exhibition terminus, it would have to either bypass High Park from the east and north, or squeeze between High Park and the lake. In the latter case, it will run at-grade or elevated, not tunneled.

 

[BB ON]

Seems like it would be better to use buses for local service and higher average speed/larger stop spacing to encourage longer distance trips to switch from cars.

These neighborhoods of single family homes are dependent on cars to do everything -- groceries, shopping, commuting. If we want to dent car dependency, we need to make it easier to make these local trips without one. That means making it easy to get to the store nearby instead making it easy to get to Yonge or Malvern. The LRT, at least, was a good compromise on locality and speed -- throwing down a surface stop has a cost of virtually nothing while still letting you get to Malvern reasonably fast. If you have options for travelling locally (bike/walk/transit) then not only is it less likely you need to travel far to begin with, when you do need to travel, it's easier because the roads aren't clogged with people doing local trips.

Whereas you spend $300MM+/km to tunnel through suburbia without the 20,000pphpd to justify it.

 

[ARG1]

These neighborhoods of single family homes are dependent on cars to do everything -- groceries, shopping, commuting. If we want to dent car dependency, we need to make it easier to make these local trips without one. That means making it easy to get to the store nearby instead making it easy to get to Yonge or Malvern. The LRT, at least, was a good compromise on locality and speed -- throwing down a surface stop has a cost of virtually nothing while still letting you get to Malvern reasonably fast. If you have options for travelling locally (bike/walk/transit) then not only is it less likely you need to travel far to begin with, when you do need to travel, it's easier because the roads aren't clogged with people doing local trips.

Whereas you spend $300MM+/km to tunnel through suburbia without the 20,000pphpd to justify it.

Using LRTs to get people to get out of their cars for local traffic is impractical in low density environments. In a car you can carry a massive amount of groceries and items, all while taking only 5 minutes to get to your destination. If you want to do grocery shopping with local transit, first you have to spend 10 minutes getting to the LRT, then wait around 5 minutes for the next train, all to ride maybe 1 stop. You're not going to get anyone out of their car with that.

The reality of LRTs is that they are fantastic as local transit - in high density environments where people live and work right next to the LRT. With the way Toronto suburbs are designed, LRTs absolutely fail at being adequate local transit - any transit on a Toronto Arterial can only function as a funnel to another subway line. This is why if we look at what regions in the 905 are doing - they're building BRTs with wide stop spacing that serve as longer distance commuting options - NEVER TO ACT AS LOCAL TRANSIT.

"The LRT, at least, was a good compromise on locality and speed"

Full Stop: They are a good compromise on locality and capacity, LRTs are a disaster when it comes to speed. If you want speed, you build BRTs for their low cost, or Light Metros - end of story.

On the surface, LRTs in low density suburbs make sense, and I could understand why at a high level view they sound appealing: They are lower capacity than regular metros whilst being relatively cheap: Perfect for the amount of traffic one might expect on a suburban arterial. The reality however is that LRTs absolutely fail at providing suburbanites actually useful transit when you consider their needs: The average suburbanite travels up to 10km on their weekday commutes to reach their destinations: LRTs with tight stop spacing that Toronto wanted to build with Transit City and that you're advocating for absolutely fails at this. By being slow, the LRTs become extremely unattractive as a mode of transit for general purpose use, and as such are bad at getting people out of their cars.

I've used this example a million times, but I'll reiterate it again: Compare Portland's transit system with Vancouver's transit system - 2 cities with very similar populations and similar polycentric designs. Portland built a massive LRT network - prioritizing quantity over quality, meanwhile Vancouver built massive high speed elevated metro lines into its suburbs that are fed by frequent bus services - prioritizing quality over quantity. Despite having far less kilometers of rail, Vancouver has a ridership that is 5x higher than that of Portland's. Its so bad in fact that in the worst months of COVID, Vancouver's transit ridership was still higher than what Portland had pre COVID.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

A smaller footprint / more agile technology will help extend this line beyond the immediate targets. Converted to mini metro, it could eventually connect to the Lakeshore East service in the east, and reach Rexdale or Pearson in the west.

If the Sheppard gets extended as a full-scale subway, that's fine if it is never expected to go past McCowan in the east and past Jane in the west.

Extensions beyond McCowan and Jane wouldn't follow Sheppard, and would need to handle tight turns. That means, they would probably never happen if the wide-body subway technology is retained.

Fair points.

We should retain the wide subway tech. We don't need more rollign stock and MSF's.

I think Sheppard will have to go to Malvern, especially if the Bloor Danforth Line stays on McCowan. A or two stop extension to Markham road.

These neighborhoods of single family homes are dependent on cars to do everything -- groceries, shopping, commuting. If we want to dent car dependency, we need to make it easier to make these local trips without one. That means making it easy to get to the store nearby instead making it easy to get to Yonge or Malvern. The LRT, at least, was a good compromise on locality and speed -- throwing down a surface stop has a cost of virtually nothing while still letting you get to Malvern reasonably fast. If you have options for travelling locally (bike/walk/transit) then not only is it less likely you need to travel far to begin with, when you do need to travel, it's easier because the roads aren't clogged with people doing local trips.

Whereas you spend $300MM+/km to tunnel through suburbia without the 20,000pphpd to justify it.

IMO, let's stop the fight, go with the subway and just rezone. Will be much easier, and will get some condos built in north Scarborough.

 

[BB ON]

If you want to do grocery shopping with local transit, first you have to spend 10 minutes getting to the LRT, then wait around 5 minutes for the next train, all to ride maybe 1 stop. You're not going to get anyone out of their car with that.

The "last mile" problem is the same for either transit mode (but probably worse for the subway, since the budget/mode will dictate fewer stops built). This isn't a fault of either the LRT or subway, rather zoning, but I think in either case it's going to be a hard sell to get someone to walk past the car in their driveway. The advantage of a car becomes apparent at longer distances because no matter which mode, you're avoiding more and more stops. So it isn't 10 LRT stops vs 5 subway stops (plus transfers and stops beyond), it's both vs 0 stops. So, if it's not going to be attractive to locals because it can't compete with their cars, and doesn't really get them around the neighborhood, who does it really serve?

 

[asher__jo]

The "last mile" problem is the same for either transit mode (but probably worse for the subway, since the budget/mode will dictate fewer stops built). This isn't a fault of either the LRT or subway, rather zoning, but I think in either case it's going to be a hard sell to get someone to walk past the car in their driveway. The advantage of a car becomes apparent at longer distances because no matter which mode, you're avoiding more and more stops. So it isn't 10 LRT stops vs 5 subway stops (plus transfers and stops beyond), it's both vs 0 stops. So, if it's not going to be attractive to locals because it can't compete with their cars, and doesn't really get them around the neighborhood, who does it really serve?

And not everyone does a grocery "haul". With affordable click and collect or delivery, the ways we're living that operate around a car are changing.