Toronto Ontario Line 3 | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx

From the...

Full Report - Environmental Impact Assessment Report​

...at this link

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1649863158962.png

Looks like the trains will drop off the passengers to egress onto the platforms. Then the trains will proceed PAST the station into the tailtracks to switch directions. Then the trains will re-enter the stations on the opposite side to allow the passengers to enter the trains.
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actually, that was the setup they were planning for. remember the cross platform transfers with the straddled OL at east harbour?
that required a fly-under at scarborough junction. which now that the OL tracks are together, theres no need for it really.
its going o be up to the oncorr contractor to build it or not
If there were 4 tracks all the way to Pickering, the smart plan would have been to use the two northern tracks for local/all-stops trains, and the southern pair of expresses. This would minimize crossing movements and likely allow for the delaying of the requirement for flyovers at Scarborough and Pickering. But seeing as how we're still seemingly decades away from that happening, that's not likely to be the way that the tracks will be organized.

But honestly, if they play their cards right - and with an improved signalling system - they could do it without flyovers and still make it fairly reliable and painless from an operational standpoint.

Dan
 
From the...

Full Report - Environmental Impact Assessment Report​

...at this link

View attachment 392560
View attachment 392566
Looks like the trains will drop off the passengers to egress onto the platforms. Then the trains will proceed PAST the station into the tailtracks to switch directions. Then the trains will re-enter the stations on the opposite side to allow the passengers to enter the trains.
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I can remember getting on the Waterfront Station Skytrain only to have it continue PAST the station into some unknown secret track I didn't know existed. But then it stopped and went back to the station on the other side. I was hoping I had discovered some super secret transit line that only the new world order lizard elites know about, but it turns out it was the crossover track.
 
I can remember getting on the Waterfront Station Skytrain only to have it continue PAST the station into some unknown secret track I didn't know existed. But then it stopped and went back to the station on the other side. I was hoping I had discovered some super secret transit line that only the new world order lizard elites know about, but it turns out it was the crossover track.
Because there are humans "driving" the current subway trains, they have to stop inside the station next to the platforms, so that they can get off or on for a change of crew. Since the Ontario Line will be "driverless" (only humans being there for giving companionship for passengers, or security control for others), they don't need humans inside the tailtrack. Hopefully, the passengers will remember to get off.
 
That's the thing - do we really? Realistically what's the chances of the OL having higher passenger loads than the Yonge Line within our lifetimes?
Putting aside the drop in ridership due to COVID, it seems extremely probable that OL will exceed Yonge Line's 2019 ridership. The extension to Sheppard alone will assuredly push the OL to 20,000+ pphpd.

Employment growth in the core of the city continues to boom, and as the OL travels through the core, that will put enormous upward pressure on ridership in the coming years.

On top of that, Toronto and the GTA's population continues to boom, which will add additional ridership pressures.

Then there are further extensions north to York Region to consider as well, which will also apply ridership pressure.

Short of Toronto experiencing an utterly catastrophic contraction in employment/population growth, it's hard for me to envision a scenario where the OL doesn't exceed 30,000 pphpd. Given 20 years of population/employment growth, and extensions to Sheppard, I could absolutely see ridership of well over 30,000 pphpd by 2042. The OL would be less than a decade old at that point.

In any case, the very high ridership potential of the OL is just symptomatic of us underbuilding transit for decades. Toronto should've had a second line through the core of the city since the 80s.
 
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You have to remember that the Yonge Line will remain the preferred n-s corridor for most travel in Toronto, as it offers better access to a wider area of downtown and amenities to the north.

Sure, the OL will get busier as it gets extended north to Sheppard and beyond, but the crunch point for capacity which matters is between East Harbour and downtown. Evaluating if the extra capacity is needed is a function of evaluating how many extra people will make the trip between East Harbour and Queen / Osgoode in the morning rush.

Also - it does have 50% additional capacity on that corridor, even in 2041 (which likely assumes things like East Harbour being built out), and as I've said before, if it does end up hitting 30k+ in 2077.. we could always just build a third subway line. the real cost to government of building that third line would likely be equal or less than upfronting capital costs for that extra capacity today and waiting 30-40 years for it to be used.

Toronto exceptionalism at it's finest is almost every other large city on the planet getting by just fine with subway capacities in the 30k range, by building new lines when the existing one gets overloaded (as Toronto is doing today), but nope, in Toronto, we have to build mega-subways to accommodate 100 years of growth. Nowhere else does that.
 
You have to remember that the Yonge Line will remain the preferred n-s corridor for most travel in Toronto, as it offers better access to a wider area of downtown and amenities to the north.

Sure, the OL will get busier as it gets extended north to Sheppard and beyond, but the crunch point for capacity which matters is between East Harbour and downtown. Evaluating if the extra capacity is needed is a function of evaluating how many extra people will make the trip between East Harbour and Queen / Osgoode in the morning rush.

Also - it does have 50% additional capacity on that corridor, even in 2041 (which likely assumes things like East Harbour being built out), and as I've said before, if it does end up hitting 30k+ in 2077.. we could always just build a third subway line. the real cost to government of building that third line would likely be equal or less than upfronting capital costs for that extra capacity today and waiting 30-40 years for it to be used.

I'm curious, where would this third subway line go?

Toronto exceptionalism at it's finest is almost every other large city on the planet getting by just fine with subway capacities in the 30k range, by building new lines when the existing one gets overloaded (as Toronto is doing today), but nope, in Toronto, we have to build mega-subways to accommodate 100 years of growth. Nowhere else does that.

There hasn't been a subway built in downtown Toronto in over half a century. Are you honestly suggesting Toronto's coverage and capacity rivals that of other large cities on the planet?

All of our extensions have been suburban in nature. Perhaps we have a case of 'suburban exceptionalism'?

Much of the rationale for building the SSE was to build it 'properly' to accommodate future demand.
 
I'm curious, where would this third subway line go?

Pick one

College
Dundas
Richmond
Adelaide
King
Wellington
Front

Parliament
Sherbourne
Jarvis
Spadina
Bathurst

Part of the reason the Yonge line has so much traffic is because it's the only N/S line and the only line to go into Downtown.

Build the Ontario line, GO RER and maybe another U-line going through the downtown core and people from Victoria Park and Finch won't be using the Yonge University Line to go downtown.
 
If, and its a big IF, they actually use proper transit priority traffic signals and wider stops, double-point track switches, and better operations, on Spadina, Harbourfront, and St. Clair, we would have had nearly rapid transit operations along those streets. As it its, the almighty automobile gods' disciples refuse to do so, and continue to genuflect before their automobile gods.

Fotolia_88218089_S_opt-1.jpg
From link.
 
Pick one

College
Dundas
Richmond
Adelaide
King
Wellington
Front

Parliament
Sherbourne
Jarvis
Spadina
Bathurst

Part of the reason the Yonge line has so much traffic is because it's the only N/S line and the only line to go into Downtown.

Build the Ontario line, GO RER and maybe another U-line going through the downtown core and people from Victoria Park and Finch won't be using the Yonge University Line to go downtown.
College seems reasonable if you want an East-West corridor every 1km.
 
Putting aside the drop in ridership due to COVID, it seems extremely probable that OL will exceed Yonge Line's 2019 ridership. The extension to Sheppard alone will assuredly push the OL to 20,000+ pphpd.

Employment growth in the core of the city continues to boom, and as the OL travels through the core, that will put enormous upward pressure on ridership in the coming years.

On top of that, Toronto and the GTA's population continues to boom, which will add additional ridership pressures.

Then there are further extensions north to York Region to consider as well, which will also apply ridership pressure.

Short of Toronto experiencing an utterly catastrophic contraction in employment/population growth, it's hard for me to envision a scenario where the OL doesn't exceed 30,000 pphpd. Given 20 years of population/employment growth, and extensions to Sheppard, I could absolutely see ridership of well over 30,000 pphpd by 2042. The OL would be less than a decade old at that point.

In any case, the very high ridership potential of the OL is just symptomatic of us underbuilding transit for decades. Toronto should've had a second line through the core of the city since the 80s.
Sounds like we should build additional subway lines then! Also, really beef up GO Expansion.
 
You have to remember that the Yonge Line will remain the preferred n-s corridor for most travel in Toronto, as it offers better access to a wider area of downtown and amenities to the north.
It's hard for me to imagine how or why a customers originating from east of Leslie would favour the Yonge Line over the Ontario Line to get Downtown. That's another 5 kilometres stuck in a mixed traffic bus. The Ontario Line will get them Downtown faster. And even if it didn't, I'm sure most of them would still pick the OL just out of passenger comfort.

The Yonge Line will remain very busy, but at peak hours it'll be reduced to serving customers from York Region and the narrow band of Toronto residents between the OL and Spadina Line (which, to be fair, is the densest part of the city).

if it does end up hitting 30k+ in 2077.. we could always just build a third subway line
There is no way it'll take 55 years to hit 30,000 pphpd. Not unless something goes catastrophically wrong with Toronto's economy.

With a capacity of 30,000, and an extension to Sheppard moving at least 20,000 pphpd, that leaves 10,000 pphpd for growth. That sounds like a lot, but to put that in perspective, that's equivalent to just 2/3rds the capacity of the Eglinton Crosstown (which is itself a line that some people insist doesn't have capacity for long term growth).

The idea that 55 years worth of employment growth would produce only another 10k pphpd is a complete fantasy. Not unless our economy is in the toilet. If our economy is strong, we'll fill up that 10,000 pphpd with quickness.

And please keep in mind that nothing I've said here even factors in transfers from RER at East Harbour. That's at least thousands more OL seats being taken up at peak hour. So in reality we have even less than 10k pphpd for growth.

Toronto exceptionalism at it's finest is almost every other large city on the planet getting by just fine with subway capacities in the 30k range, by building new lines when the existing one gets overloaded (as Toronto is doing today), but nope, in Toronto, we have to build mega-subways to accommodate 100 years of growth. Nowhere else does that.
I'm all for new subway lines. I've said before that I believe that we should be targeting a third line downtown by 2040. However, Toronto really doesn't have the greatest track record here.

Even putting that aside though, the additional capacity is useful just for flexibility into the future. Lower capacity today means we'll have less flexibility tomorrow.

Had the OL been designed with extra capacity, extending it into York Region would've been rather trivial and inexpensive. We could've seen that extension to York Region done by 2040. But now that's just not going to be a possibility (not without catastrophically low employment growth). And it's not like we can just trivially just build another subway line from Downtown to York Region either; it would almost certainly be too expensive to be worthwhile. These capacity constraints mean that a subway from Downtown to eastern York Region has gone from a cheap, no brainer extension, to something that probably isn't going to ever happen.

Likewise, it's unlikely that the OL could serve deep into the west end of the city either, due to capacity constraints.
 
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Putting aside the drop in ridership due to COVID, it seems extremely probable that OL will exceed Yonge Line's 2019 ridership. The extension to Sheppard alone will assuredly push the OL to 20,000+ pphpd.

Employment growth in the core of the city continues to boom, and as the OL travels through the core, that will put enormous upward pressure on ridership in the coming years.

On top of that, Toronto and the GTA's population continues to boom, which will add additional ridership pressures.

Then there are further extensions north to York Region to consider as well, which will also apply ridership pressure.

Short of Toronto experiencing an utterly catastrophic contraction in employment/population growth, it's hard for me to envision a scenario where the OL doesn't exceed 30,000 pphpd. Given 20 years of population/employment growth, and extensions to Sheppard, I could absolutely see ridership of well over 30,000 pphpd by 2042. The OL would be less than a decade old at that point.

In any case, the very high ridership potential of the OL is just symptomatic of us underbuilding transit for decades. Toronto should've had a second line through the core of the city since the 80s.

Sounds like we should build additional subway lines then! Also, really beef up GO Expansion.
Yes, I really want to see a subway on Dundas connecting northern Etobicoke to Downtown. It's the most underserved region in the city, and will remain that way even with the current plans on the table.

I'm a lot more uncertain about where another subway line from Downtown the east end would go though.
 
I'm sure we could find a useful route... College-Gerrard-Golden Mile-Warden-Markham TC? But really, if we're seeing these kinds of demands to get downtown from the outer suburbs, we can get a lot of bang for the buck from expanding GO service.
 
Another subway line through downtown would be such a tall order on every level (or just political and money level). I tend to be reserved and think the best case scenario would be a short stretch of tunneled LRT just for the core, outside there a mix of on-street and in-median.
 
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