Amazingly, 44 North is still pushing his DRL idea. There are quite a few issues that I have with it, that I'm not sure where to begin. Lets compare this to the "traditional alignment" that interchanges at Pape / Danforth, with a little help from
drlnow.com.
South of Danforth
Needless to say, putting concrete bridges through two popular parks will be extremely controversial if it's ever attempted, for obvious reasons that were discussed here previously.
Oak station should be closer to Gerrard St, but having to weave around those parks makes that tricky to do. Meanwhile, a connection to 505 Dundas is missed entirely (but to be fair, the same is true for the traditional Pape / Danforth alignment).
It's better if the subway goes through East York rather than downtown. Gerrard station could so elegantly connect with a new GO station, the 506 Carlton, and 72 Pape bus all in one multimodal hub (see image below), with some decent development potential available within a 5 minute walk. Riverdale is also a great place for a station somewhere on Queen street, east on the Don River. These two stations will also save several minutes for westbound streetcar riders, by allowing them to transfer to the subway sooner compared to 44 North's alignment.
Broadview / Danforth Interchange
What an engineering feat! I hope you realize there's a huge difference in elevation between the Don Valley and the BD line. Look how small that train looks from up there. It's a long uphill slog for subway trains to get from the rail corridor on the right, to Broadview station somewhere on the left. Ditto for south of Danforth.
Image by Craig White
I also see huge constructablility issues with this:
- A new DRL subway platform would be at least 150 m long, not just a little dot. It has to fit neatly along Broadview Ave, as there's nowhere else to build it without demolishing buildings.
- There should be a crossover here just like every other interchange station on the TTC, especially if phase one will end at Danforth. Just like the platform itself, it also has to be built cut and cover along the street.
- How do you plan to tunnel beneath all those highrise and lowrise building? Since cut and cover is not an option, don't forget to also make some room for TBM extraction shafts. It's a lot of hassle for such a short tunnel drive, but I don't know how else to do it.
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^ I've left some extra space for professional engineers to explain the myriad of other problems with this interchange.
Construction here will completely snarl the 504 and 505 streetcars, northbound DVP onramp, and the main traffic artery between downtown and East York. At least with a Pape / Danforth interchange, motorists can use alternate streets to go around the mess upon crossing the bridge into East York. No streetcars will be affected, and routes 25 and 81 can be rerouted to Donlands. With a subway under Pape, these buses can eventually be removed entirely, thus improving traffic flow, noise, and air quality.
Since the Scarborough subway is moving ahead, the amount of overcrowding that we see on the Yonge line today will start to happen on the BD line as well. Which means that the DRL will also have to provide some relief for the BD line. The traditional DRL has an interchange station at Pape, which during the morning rush will provide relief two stations sooner compared to an interchange at Broadview. Pape station has also received significant investment recently under the TTC modernization program.
Thorncliffe & Flemingdon Park
So now that this miracle of an interchange has been pulled off, off we go to the next station at Laird Drive, over 3.1 km away. A distance unprecedented in TTC history. I guess it's a logical place for a station if we have to use the rail corridor, but development potential here is mediocre. Everything south of the tracks is taken up by forest and huge hydro transmission towers. West of Laird is largely stable, lowrise residential. Whatever potential ridership and development that may occur here will also compete with the Eglinton crosstown station located on the same street. Good luck, cause Eglinton / Laird is a much more ideal location.
Next stop, Thorncliffe Park. I don't know how you can say with a strait face that Thorncliffe Park will be served. Your proposed station is somewhere beyond these trees:
In the other direction, it's just parking lots and lowrise industrial.
There is nothing here. Nobody is gonna walk to this grassy nowhere land from their apartment. And just like with the pervious station, development potential is mediocre if not worse. It's location will do little to quell the feeling of isolation of Thorncliffe Park, if residents will still have to get on a bus to use the subway just like today. I encourage you to
read this to better understand why a proper subway station for this community is justified.
And then finally, the subway will quickly burrow itself underground, briefly re-emerge to cross the valley again, then take a sharp turn to reach Eglinton / Don Mills. I'm no expert, but I'm sure there are some problems here to be worked out as well. For one, the curve is probably too sharp and too far north since the platform and crossover has to fit under Don Mills (just like with Broadview).
And of course, there's
no station at Flemingdon Park. Cosburn is another missed opportunity. It's a very walkable area that lends itself well to transit. The Cosburn bus runs frequently, and there are many apartment buildings within walking distance.
Travel Time
Your key justification for this alignment is to save money, and that it's faster than the traditional DRL.
- Your proposal: 10.3 km, 9 stations
- Traditional DRL: 11.9 km, 10 stations (maybe 11)
You've saved 1.6 km, and one station. That's probably 2 minutes at best, which to me doesn't live up to your hype. The only riders who will save time under your proposal are those coming from Eglinton /Don Mills station. For everyone else, not so much. Thorncliffe & Flemingdon Park residents will still have to take the bus. No station on Cosburn. East-end streetcar routes will have to cross the river into downtown before intersecting with the DRL, instead of intersecting sooner at Pape Ave. And so on. Since when is having more stations a bad thing?
Cost
You probably underestimate the amount of money that your proposal will save. You have 1.7 km of bridges, all of which are either tall, curved, sloped, or in difficult locations. Your interchange will cost substantially more than Pape / Danforth due to said engineering difficulties. Much of the existing rail corridor is only single track and along a steep slope, so that will have to be widened which is not a simple task. Look no further than the issues with widening the Richmond Hill GO line, for example. Nevertheless, some money could be saved. But is it worth it?
With your station locations (particularly north of Danforth) and fewer connecting buses, ridership will be worse than the Sheppard subway. Last time when this city tried to go cheap on subways, we ended up with the Spadina line in the middle of a highway, with atrocious public realm surrounding every station. In hindsight, was saving money like that really a great idea? Meanwhile, Dufferin Street (which runs close to Allen Rd) is one of the busiest and most miserable bus routes in the city, is one of the ugliest streets in the city, and had almost no development on it for decades. Had the Spadina line gone under Dufferin street instead, it would look completely different today north of Eglinton, and the subway would have better ridership. But that's what happens when people want to be cheap. Therefore, I do not want the same kind of mistakes to be repeated with the DRL. Subways are supposed to be built where people live and where people want to go, not in the middle of nowhere. Subways last for many decades and transform neighbourhoods, so no matter mow much they cost, they have to be done properly. If Scarborough and Vaughan get to enjoy all-underground subways, then it's about time that downtown gets the same kind of investment that should have happened years ago.
