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

^^^ speaking of that, i've been meaning to ask, if you guys had a choice of O'Connor, Mortimer or Cosburn, where would the stop be at? Or should there be two on that section?

Mortimer and Cosburn (Gamble). The space in-between Gamble and Danforth is wide enough to justify a stop in the middle, and if along the Pape corridor would directly serve a campus of Centennial College.
 
Maybe they could rebuild Leaside bridge?

AoD

Building a new bridge would be cheaper. The Leaside bridge was built with a bit of excess strength, but not that much.

Not only that, but it's a terrible alignment for any potential subway crossing of the Don Valley.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
Building a new bridge would be cheaper. The Leaside bridge was built with a bit of excess strength, but not that much.

Not only that, but it's a terrible alignment for any potential subway crossing of the Don Valley.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

The excess strength was used up when it was widened to six lanes.
 
The excess strength was used up when it was widened to six lanes.
Do you have an engineering opinion to back that up, are you just repeating the comments made here previously, which also didn't seem to have any solid basis in fact.

I don't see any reason the they couldn't convert two of the lanes to LRT, leave 4 lanes to traffic, and reinforce the structure if necessary. The vehicle loading for the LRT isn't going to be that different (especially compared to 6 lanes of gridlocked traffic!). I have a hard time believing the rail would be much heavier than some of the paving that could be removed.

It's a very unnecessary 6-lane bridge - I always thought when I used to drive over it regularly to get to work that 4 lanes would be fine. I never saw any congestion on it, except when Millwood was reduced from 2 lanes to 1 lane heading northbound.
 
Do you have an engineering opinion to back that up, are you just repeating the comments made here previously, which also didn't seem to have any solid basis in fact.

I don't see any reason the they couldn't convert two of the lanes to LRT, leave 4 lanes to traffic, and reinforce the structure if necessary. The vehicle loading for the LRT isn't going to be that different (especially compared to 6 lanes of gridlocked traffic!). I have a hard time believing the rail would be much heavier than some of the paving that could be removed.

It's a very unnecessary 6-lane bridge - I always thought when I used to drive over it regularly to get to work that 4 lanes would be fine. I never saw any congestion on it, except when Millwood was reduced from 2 lanes to 1 lane heading northbound.

I would trust smallspy's comments on the Leaside bridge based on many of his previous posts. He seems to have pretty extensive understanding of transportation issues, engineering background or not.

I don't really understand these minuscule cost-saving measures either. If you need to rehabilitate the bridge for higher order transit, building an entirely new bridge is probably a better alternative anyways.
 
I would trust smallspy's comments on the Leaside bridge based on many of his previous posts. He seems to have pretty extensive understanding of transportation issues, engineering background or not.
I'll go with Drum's earlier comment that the City was going to have to have engineers look at the bridge, to figure out what their options were

I don't really understand these minuscule cost-saving measures either. If you need to rehabilitate the bridge for higher order transit, building an entirely new bridge is probably a better alternative anyways.
Your might not have to do much though ... though now we are thinking subway rather than LRT, I'd bet a new bridge would make more sense, given the required grade separation. Then you could put it where you want it!
 
I'll go with Drum's earlier comment that the City was going to have to have engineers look at the bridge, to figure out what their options were

The City had the TTC's engineers spend a couple of days on it several years ago, and my understanding was that the very preliminary results were that it could with some minor modifications - and provided that the LRT line stayed precisely on the centre-line of the bridge. I don't know if they ever went any further with it and actually did proper engineering studies to substantiate that result however - I've certainly never seen any tenders for it on the TTC's site or through the City.

Dan
Toronto, ont.
 
I agree with this map from Roncesvalles to Eginton at Don Mills. I just have never been convinced that a subway needs to get to Dundas West. The Roncesvalles streetcar doesn't seem that busy, High Park isn't a huge trip generator, and the areas east of the park have good access to downtown. I see High Park and Humber Bay as the eventual bottle neck to east-west movement that needs relief (southern Etobicoke is relatively underdeveloped currently for an area so close to downtown) so I think that before heading north a subway should at least reach Humber Loop to capture all the east-west traffic south of Bloor. Currently many head north on various bus routes to Bloor subway to get past the park, and then come south again. The Queen car and route 80 are the only local services south of Bloor. Also, running a subway along a rail corridor for an extended distance doesn't make sense when you can run GO REX EMUs in the rail corridor at high frequency and achieve the same benefit and simplify operations in the rail corridor by having compatible rolling stock.

Imagine REX stops at Union, Dufferin, Eglinton,and Calendonia (as shown in the map) plus Earlscort which has been seen in plans, plus Weston which is off the map.... what new area does a subway up the rail corridor serve? Stated a different way if you are standing at the platform at Mt.Dennis and the subway pulls in and the REX pulls in, besides the subway going slower there are only 3 or 4 stations of difference. If we are going to build subway it should be relieving services that are at capacity (I don't see the Georgetown corridor's 4 railway tracks as being anywhere near capacity) and opening up new and faster routes to currently under-serviced or congested areas. I would propose having the DRL's west side continue to Royal York and Queensway, then take the most direct diagonal line to the airport terminal crossing under the runway. From a connectivity perspective it adds GO Kipling & Bloor Line, Renforth BRT, and the airport, it provides a completely new transportation corridor servicing the whole southern part of Etobicoke (improved connection to Lakeshore West LRT, Queensway, Six Points redevelopment, East Mall / West Mall developments, and the Airport Corporate Centre's large job base.

I think you bring up some great points that haven't been considered before. You've convinced me that the DRL should continue further on west before linking back up to the Bloor line. Although I'm not sure exactly where that would be from your post. Could you post a map of your proposed western leg of the DRL?
 
Whipping it into Google Maps this is what it looks like. To go diagonal it would require a deep bored tunnel but there are obvious benefits in terms of trip time compared to trying to follow the street grid.

WesternDRL.jpg
 

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Whipping it into Google Maps this is what it looks like. To go diagonal it would require a deep bored tunnel but there are obvious benefits in terms of trip time compared to trying to follow the street grid.

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From your mouth to God's ears! Unfortunately the chances of the city looking at something so pragmatic is nil.
 
From your mouth to God's ears! Unfortunately the chances of the city looking at something so pragmatic is nil.

Agreed. A lot of other cities do deep bores - for example in London a large part of the Underground is super-deep. Even Montreal lines are pretty deep compared to Toronto. And lots of cities seem to run sub-surface rail along desire lines rather than slavishly following existing streets. But of course we do everything differently in Toronto. So we will end up with the right angle proposed in the south Riverdale section of the DRL in the unlikely event it ever gets built.
 
Agreed. A lot of other cities do deep bores - for example in London a large part of the Underground is super-deep. Even Montreal lines are pretty deep compared to Toronto. And lots of cities seem to run sub-surface rail along desire lines rather than slavishly following existing streets. But of course we do everything differently in Toronto. So we will end up with the right angle proposed in the south Riverdale section of the DRL in the unlikely event it ever gets built.

It is ridiculous. I'm not sure if property rights in Canada extend to the Earth's core (they do in certain jurisdictions), but the city should really move away from sending subway lines along existing streets. Maybe if we had an irregular street grid, but we're on a rigid 90 degree grid and the main benefits of subways are not on linear routes.
 

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