Toronto Crosstown LRT | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | Arcadis

[ehlow]

Yes. Eglinton Line is designed with a capacity of 15,000 persons. On opening day the line will be using trains of either one or two cars in length (I'm not sure which one). Up to three cars can be used without any infrastructure upgrades, providing a capacity of 15,000 persons, approximately three times of the expected 2031 ridership. If usage on the line exceeds 15,000 persons, stations can be expanded to accept additional cars, or the light rail system can be upgraded to heavy rail. Upgrading to heavy rail would result in a configuration similar to Sheppard Line (4 car T1 train sets).

For reference, Yonge-University Line and Bloor-Danforth Line have capacity for approximately 30,000 persons.

It will never be converted to heavy rail or have the station platforms widened beyond 90m (three 30m car trains). It's just completely impractical. Just like how impractical/difficult it would be to convert Sheppard subway to LRT.

It'll have ATO in the tunnelled sections so that part will be high frequency.

The only upgrade I could see for the underground section is to have a 90m continuous (articulated) train like the rockets rather than three separate 30m car trains, to save double ended cab space.

The surface section east of Laird could conceivably be "upgraded" to elevated or underground sometime in the distant future though.

But anyways it's somewhat irrelevant since they're building this thing with a lot of spare capacity.

 

[nfitz]

It will never be converted to heavy rail or have the station platforms widened beyond 90m (three 30m car trains). It's just completely impractical.

Agreed. If Toronto changes overwhelmingly so that it does become necessary in 50 or 100 years, then you just build other east-west lines. Down Lawrence, or down St. Clair (that would be useful, a line that connects St. Clair East in Scarborough to St. Clair station).

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Miller is the gift that keeps on giving .

I saw Miller in your post and for a second I assumed it was AndrewPMK rising from the dead!

 

[ehlow]

Agreed. If Toronto changes overwhelmingly so that it does become necessary in 50 or 100 years, then you just build other east-west lines. Down Lawrence, or down St. Clair (that would be useful, a line that connects St. Clair East in Scarborough to St. Clair station).

Exactly. Building more lines & expanding the system is a better approach than very expensively & impractically trying to convert & modify existing ones. The headwalls of the Eglinton stations are 30m and that's pretty much the limit on train length. I'm no civil engineer, but I'd assume it's insanely disruptive & expensive to change the actual station box.

Like with the Yonge subway, it will be very difficult & impractical to expand the existing platforms beyond their current length for longer trains (beyond 6.5 car trains). Even if you could extend some platforms, there are all these other issues like the station entrances not being able to handle the amount of people, all the train yard & tunnel issues.

The other thing is, if you can do the conversion/upgrade while the current service is running, it's much more practical than if you have to shut the line down. For example, Union station staying open while adding the 2nd platform. The more the current thing is used, the more inconvenient & impractical it is to shut it down to convert. If you can build parallel to the existing thing, then it's much more practical in my opinion. For example, if the Eglinton East surface section of LRT needs to be elevated sometime in the future, I could imagine it being built south or north of the existing ROW and quickly switching over to minimize service disruption.

 

[sixrings]

West of Mt. Dennis peak AM point/hour is 3,500.

East of Don Mills peak AM point/hour is 4,000.

Source

500 people per hour doesn't seem like much a difference for the east to be built guaranteed but the west be ostracized into oblivion.

 

[rbt]

Yes. Eglinton Line is designed with a capacity of 15,000 persons.

...

For reference, Yonge-University Line and Bloor-Danforth Line have capacity for approximately 30,000 persons.

This is the important information.

Eglinton from East is 15k, Eglinton from West is 30k. Yonge heading south is 30k.

A full Eglinton LRT will mean nobody except people from Eglinton LRT may use the Yonge line. The Fire Chief will require artificially restricting flow on Eglinton LRT long before it hits capacity. A DRL to Eglinton actually reduces the need for capacity on Eglinton by taking people off the peak point of the line (portion closest to Yonge).


Long before Eglinton hits capacity we will want dramatically enhanced capacity on parallel streets like Lawrence and York Mills/Wilson.

 

[ehlow]

West of Mt. Dennis peak AM point/hour is 3,500.

East of Don Mills peak AM point/hour is 4,000.

Source

Looking at the source, the majority of highest demand/ridership is within the tunnelled section.

 

[sixrings]

True, though it did assume that the Crosstown would be built all the way to Pearson. West of Jane though, the AM peak was only 2,300; 1,700 west of Kipling, and only 800 west of Renforth (with only 400 eastbound departing Renforth). Interestingly, by the time you get to Royal York, there's a many heading west as east.

Meanwhile while east of Don Mills was 4,000, it was still 3,000 east of Victoria Park, and 2,700 departing Kennedy station.

Ok those numbers make the west extension seem less reasonable even though I hate the linear transfer. I assume the jane bus will do some sort of jog onto eglinton to mount dennis? My problem is why build lrt which is suppose to be the affordable version of rapid transit if still we have to build stubs. Obviously this is a massive stub but why stop building when you are 80% complete. I know the numbers are higher for finch but I'd rather have one complete line on eglinton than a partial line on eglinton partial line on sheppard and partia line on finch.

 

[ehlow]

Ok those numbers make the west extension seem less reasonable even though I hate the linear transfer. I assume the jane bus will do some sort of jog onto eglinton to mount dennis? My problem is why build lrt which is suppose to be the affordable version of rapid transit if still we have to build stubs. Obviously this is a massive stub but why stop building when you are 80% complete. I know the numbers are higher for finch but I'd rather have one complete line on eglinton than a partial line on eglinton partial line on sheppard and partia line on finch.

Well how long does a line have to be before it's not a stub? It has to end somewhere. Even if the full 30km of LRT is built on Eglinton, it still ends at Renforth creating a linear transfer.

A 20km LRT line is a very respectable length in my opinion.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Eglinton from East is 15k, Eglinton from West is 30k. Yonge heading south is 30k.

What are these numbers? Expected usage or maximum design capacity?

 

[nfitz]

500 people per hour doesn't seem like much a difference for the east to be built guaranteed but the west be ostracized into oblivion.

See my post above. No it doesn't, but look further in each direction. East drops to 2,700 at Kennedy, but west drops to 800 (at Renforth), and only 500 at Pearson.

 

[WislaHD]

AndrewPMK will be vindicated!

(You'll know what I'm talking about if you've lurked here long enough)

Ah yes, I was trying to remember who it was who believed Eglinton would be at capacity on opening day.

For all his anti-Miller rhetoric I did always thought he might well be right in thinking Eglinton will exceed ridership expectations.

This is the important information.

Eglinton from East is 15k, Eglinton from West is 30k. Yonge heading south is 30k.

A full Eglinton LRT will mean nobody except people from Eglinton LRT may use the Yonge line. The Fire Chief will require artificially restricting flow on Eglinton LRT long before it hits capacity. A DRL to Eglinton actually reduces the need for capacity on Eglinton by taking people off the peak point of the line (portion closest to Yonge).

Long before Eglinton hits capacity we will want dramatically enhanced capacity on parallel streets like Lawrence and York Mills/Wilson.

Exactly. Building more lines & expanding the system is a better approach than very expensively & impractically trying to convert & modify existing ones. The headwalls of the Eglinton stations are 30m and that's pretty much the limit on train length. I'm no civil engineer, but I'd assume it's insanely disruptive & expensive to change the actual station box.

Like with the Yonge subway, it will be very difficult & impractical to expand the existing platforms beyond their current length for longer trains (beyond 6.5 car trains). Even if you could extend some platforms, there are all these other issues like the station entrances not being able to handle the amount of people, all the train yard & tunnel issues.

The other thing is, if you can do the conversion/upgrade while the current service is running, it's much more practical than if you have to shut the line down. For example, Union station staying open while adding the 2nd platform. The more the current thing is used, the more inconvenient & impractical it is to shut it down to convert. If you can build parallel to the existing thing, then it's much more practical in my opinion. For example, if the Eglinton East surface section of LRT needs to be elevated sometime in the future, I could imagine it being built south or north of the existing ROW and quickly switching over to minimize service disruption.

This is important information, thanks.

There is one massive issue nobody is talking about though. While the Eglinton line will be designed to meet its projected ridership and much more, Yonge-Eglinton station however, is not.

Yonge-Eglinton station is a station with significantly smaller platforms than Bloor-Yonge that will be forced to take in a very high number of passengers. With all the development happening around Yonge-Eglinton, the station won't need to handle just transferring Crosstown passengers but a high amount of walk-in traffic too.

 

[nfitz]

...While the Eglinton line will be designed to meet its projected ridership and much more, Yonge-Eglinton station however, is not.

Yonge-Eglinton station is a station with significantly smaller platforms than Bloor-Yonge that will be forced to take in a very high number of passengers. With all the development happening around Yonge-Eglinton, the station won't need to handle just transferring Crosstown passengers but a high amount of walk-in traffic too.

I'm surprised they aren't going to find a way to squeeze in a second platform.

However, given that they are literally taking the existing station, and rebuilding it, shifting it north, one has to assume that this new design is designed to handle the forecast traffic.

I am concerned though.

 

[sixrings]

Well how long does a line have to be before it's not a stub? It has to end somewhere. Even if the full 30km of LRT is built on Eglinton, it still ends at Renforth creating a linear transfer.

A 20km LRT line is a very respectable length in my opinion.

My ideals of how long the western leg should be is in comparison to the bllor line which reaches Kipling. As a result this seems significantly shorter. Even the bloor line looks like it randomly stops versus making it all the way to highway 427.

 

[ehlow]

Ah yes, I was trying to remember who it was who believed Eglinton would be at capacity on opening day.

For all his anti-Miller rhetoric I did always thought he might well be right in thinking Eglinton will exceed ridership expectations.

Well several points:

A. Many over-estimate how much ridership some condo developments generate.

B. The capacity is roughly triple the projected 2031 peak demand (15,000 vs 5400). So even if you think Eglinton will exceed ridership expectations, it would have to be insanely higher than expected.

You can always spend more money on more capacity, and you can always assume higher ridership.

For example, say we decide, the ridership on Eglinton will be very high, so let's build a full subway instead. Let's build stations for 6 car subway trains like Yonge and Bloor subways.

OK, how do you know that ridership won't be even higher? Maybe you should build even bigger stations for 8 car subway trains? 12 car? Maybe we should build 4 tunnels instead of 2 for express service, since we regret not doing that on Yonge?

My point is, you can always go higher capacity and spend more money by saying "Toronto is growing condos are going up, therefore ridership will be higher and higher and higher", but if you want to build something you have to make your best guess at a number, and build for that number, with spare capacity to grow. You eventually have to choose something to build and build it.