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

[Streety McCarface]

I disagree. Even if they didn't remove it, they would have been left unmaintained like Adelaide and eventually rot to a stage that they wouldn't be usable. Keeping the infrastructure running has an operating cost too. Yonge, Bloor and Danforth didn't need the overnight demand for many decades and full weekend shutdowns were only a recent thing. Overnight buses are only busy between 1:30-3:30am and 6-8am on Sundays. It really doesn't justifies keeping them for 2 service hours a day.

Then what do you do for shutdowns from Sheppard to St Clair? Extend the tracks to Finch and rebuild Eglinton/Yonge every time they rearrange the intersection? Sounds like a pipe dream.

Kingston Road, Parliament St, Church Street, Coxwell Avenue, the McCaul loop, The Wellington St Loop, the Wolseley Loop, the Kingston Road Loop, the Kipling loop, the Earlscourt Loop, the Fleet loop, and the Oakwood loop would all like a word with you. They're really disappointed.

 

[robmausser]

There's a Steve Munro backlash now? The guy has done more for public transit in Toronto over 50 years than any single politician - he has dedicated his life to it for zero personal gain.

I love steve. Hes definitely done a lot for this city.

That being said there is no denying he is hard left politically and his bias and opinions do show through his blog at times, with a tendency to exaggerate the truth.

 

[Streety McCarface]

I love steve. Hes definitely done a lot for this city.

That being said there is no denying he is hard left politically and his bias and opinions do show through his blog at times, with a tendency to exaggerate the truth.

Which is why it's a blog and not a news site.

Though, to be honest, he's far less biased than Ben Spurr, I'd take Steve writing transit stories for The Star any day.

 

[Steve X]

Kingston Road, Parliament St, Church Street, Coxwell Avenue, the McCaul loop, The Wellington St Loop, the Wolseley Loop, the Kingston Road Loop, the Kipling loop, the Earlscourt Loop, the Fleet loop, and the Oakwood loop would all like a word with you. They're really disappointed.

Kingston Rd is suppose to get 14 hours of service on weekdays and received continuous streetcar service unless it was being rebuilt till the lack of vehicles. Yonge, Bloor and Danforth does not fall in this case.

 

[robmausser]

A ha! So he's to blame as to why the Downtown Relief Line wasn't built from the 1980s because of the desire to preserve the King and Queen streetcars. Got it. Holding on to nostalgia cost this city dearly cause back then the entire DRL would have been built for just a few hundred million dollars in today's dollars compared to the untold billions of today.

You could easily keep the streetcars and have a DRL line. That has nothing to do with keeping streetcars that has to do with politicians not properly funding Toronto transit at all levels.

People will look back at 50 years of electric, clean, quiet streetcar operation in Toronto while other cities are scrambling to install battery buses, their own streetcar lines to fight climate change and see Toronto as progressive for this choice.

 

[Streety McCarface]

Kingston Rd is suppose to get 14 hours of service on weekdays

Has this been the case in the past 2 years at least?

And I am not certain it's 14 hours, I think it's closer to 12.

Yonge, Bloor and Danforth does not fall in this case.

They'd see service throughout every nightly closure, enough of a reason to have them. During weekend closures, they'd be far superior to shuttle buses.
Yonge would see service throughout the day since it'd replace the 97.

I also see no reason they couldn't run streetcars on Bloor either, local service is super important for accessibility reasons alone.

 

[Steve X]

Has this been the case in the past 2 years at least?

And I am not certain it's 14 hours, I think it's closer to 12.


They'd see service throughout every nightly closure, enough of a reason to have them. During weekend closures, they'd be far superior to shuttle buses.
Yonge would see service throughout the day since it'd replace the 97.

I also see no reason they couldn't run streetcars on Bloor either, local service is super important for accessibility reasons alone.

The first 503 bus starts WB around 5am and last EB bus after 8pm. How is that 12?

It's financially not feasible to operate streetcar as temporary service. Replace the rush hour only 30 min headway 97B with a streetcar? Have it replaced with buses whenever they need a diversion? Just because you rather ride the streetcar over the subway doesn't mean 99% of the riders will. It's a really stupid idea. There are many other places to put a streetcar line than to have one parallel to a subway line.

Overnight service is even worst. One streetcar will replace 3 to 4 buses to be feasible. Have someone barf on one and you'll have 100+ riders waiting 10-15 min for the next one.

They are only far superior to buses when a lot of people use them. A bus would definitely run faster on the 501L on a Sunday evening.

 

[Streety McCarface]

The first 503 bus starts WB around 5am and last EB bus after 8pm. How is that 12?

Current 503 bus service is not indicative of the previous (the 502 and 503 before they were bustituted) or future streetcar service patterns, because I guarantee that the current service pattern we see on the 503 will be significantly different if and when it returns to streetcar operation.

It's financially not feasible to operate streetcar as temporary service. Replace the rush hour only 30 min headway 97B with a streetcar? Have it replaced with buses whenever they need a diversion? Just because you rather ride the streetcar over the subway doesn't mean 99% of the riders will. It's a really stupid idea. There are many other places to put a streetcar line than to have one parallel to a subway line.

the 97 has 15-minute service frequencies, not far off from the 514 and the 502.

You don't have to schedule closures of the subway when a streetcar diversion occurs.

99% of riders will take anything over a shuttle bus.

Where else do you suggest we put new streetcar lines then? Parliament, Church, and Coxwell don't count because the tracks already exist for the most part.

Overnight service is even worst. One streetcar will replace 3 to 4 buses to be feasible. Have someone barf on one and you'll have 100+ riders waiting 10-15 min for the next one.

You don't need to replace 3-4 buses, 2 is adequate. Blue night streetcar lines don't have more than 5 people on them most of the time, why should a Yonge or bloor streetcar be any different? Even with 3 buses to one streetcar, it's a 10-minute wait at most. With 2 buses to one streetcar, it's a 7.5 minute wait.

They are only far superior to buses when a lot of people use them. A bus would definitely run faster on the 501L on a Sunday evening.

Perhaps that's because the 501L is poorly laid out, has a bunch of speed restrictions, and has fewer passengers per vehicle, requiring fewer stops.

 

[Rainforest]

I agree with the removal of streetcars from Yonge and Bloor, taking into account the very close subway stop spacing in the sections where they replaced the streetcars. Running the streetcars in parallel with a closely-spaced subway line doesn't really make sense. Under normal operation, those streetcars would be used as lightly as bus 97, but at a much higher operational and maintenance cost.

Even when a subway closure occurs, those parallel streetcar tracks wouldn't be terribly useful. Streetcars are bigger than shuttle buses, but it would be harder to redirect the needed number of streetcars from other routes quickly. There are much fewer streetcar routes to pull from, and unlike buses, the streetcars can only turn back in certain locations. Furthermore, shuttle buses usually serve subway stations only, skipping all intermediate stops. It would be harder to operate streetcars in that manner.

On the other hand, it was definitely a good idea to keep the streetcars on the major routes like King and Queen, where no competition from the subway exists. I'm not sure about the lost streetcar lines like Church or Mt Pleasant, perhaps it would be useful to preserve some of them, too.

If/when we get the Relief Line running, I would prefer to retain the Queen streetcar. The design of Relief subway will be quite different from the downtown section of Yonge subway. Yonge has 6 intervals within the 3-km stretch from Bloor to Union, that's 500 m average stop spacing. The Relief line will have 1 - 1.5 km between stops, and won't follow any single street for a long stretch. That design is good for long-haul riders and is nearly useless for local service, hence the streetcars will still have the job to do.

 

[Steve X]

Current 503 bus service is not indicative of the previous (the 502 and 503 before they were bustituted) or future streetcar service patterns, because I guarantee that the current service pattern we see on the 503 will be significantly different if and when it returns to streetcar operation.


the 97 has 15-minute service frequencies, not far off from the 514 and the 502.

You don't have to schedule closures of the subway when a streetcar diversion occurs.

99% of riders will take anything over a shuttle bus.

Where else do you suggest we put new streetcar lines then? Parliament, Church, and Coxwell don't count because the tracks already exist for the most part.


You don't need to replace 3-4 buses, 2 is adequate. Blue night streetcar lines don't have more than 5 people on them most of the time, why should a Yonge or bloor streetcar be any different? Even with 3 buses to one streetcar, it's a 10-minute wait at most. With 2 buses to one streetcar, it's a 7.5 minute wait.

Perhaps that's because the 501L is poorly laid out, has a bunch of speed restrictions, and has fewer passengers per vehicle, requiring fewer stops.

You're trying to justified streetcars on terrible utilized routes like Ford justifying subway subway subway.

The 502/503 operated like for the last 2 decades but spilled into 8pm arrivals with all those travel times. Sure it will change but it'll change for more service not less.

The 514 only have 750m built for itself and the 502 used to be a lot busier before all the cuts. The 97 is never full and doesn't justifies streetcar at all.

Yes the overnight streetcars don't really need streetcars but since they have the tracks, they could keep them out there. Having an exclusive overnight streetcar is a different story.

These new Flexity's are faster only when there's a lot of people boarding. Much slower than buses if there's only one rider getting on or off every stop.

For the length of Yonge, Bloor or Danforth, I'll say Dufferin, Bathurst, Victoria Park or Jane. People will hate it as much as they hate buses if they have to be on one for 45 minutes.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

I agree with the removal of streetcars from Yonge and Bloor, taking into account the very close subway stop spacing in the sections where they replaced the streetcars. Running the streetcars in parallel with a closely-spaced subway line doesn't really make sense. Under normal operation, those streetcars would be used as lightly as bus 97, but at a much higher operational and maintenance cost.

Even when a subway closure occurs, those parallel streetcar tracks wouldn't be terribly useful. Streetcars are bigger than shuttle buses, but it would be harder to redirect the needed number of streetcars from other routes quickly. There are much fewer streetcar routes to pull from, and unlike buses, the streetcars can only turn back in certain locations. Furthermore, shuttle buses usually serve subway stations only, skipping all intermediate stops. It would be harder to operate streetcars in that manner.

Though, we really should have dedicated bus lanes or even makeshift BRTs on Yonge Street whenever the subway is shut down. The shuttle buses aren't cutting it.

 

[Hopkins123]

I'll take a streetcar network that carries 500K passengers per day and serves all of Downtown & Old Toronto over one ICTS line that can only carry about 250K PPD. I guarantee you that if the streetcar network was removed, we'd have far less traffic throughout the subway network, we'd be far worse off financially, and downtown wouldn't be nearly as lively as it is today.

You cannot make broad sweeping comparisons like that. The bus network in Toronto carries more passengers than the subway system but obviously subways cant replace every bus route, same way subways cannot replace every streetcar route. So saying 500K passengers per day for the entire streetcar network (including 512, and parts of 503 and 501 which venture way outside of downtown) is superior to a DRL at 250k passengers per day because of the limits of its coverage area is disingenuous.

DRL or Ontario Line may not surpass YUS or BD in ridership totals but that's hardly the point. Both YUS and BD ought to decline in ridership if and when the full U of the Ontario Line (Mt Dennis to Science Centre) is completed.

My point was, and I am shocked at how much backlash I got for it, was that the DRL could have been built 40 years ago had NIMBYs (or YIMBYs?) not protested so vocally to keep the streetcar network in tact. Even how the Ontario Line is aligned now seems to be in a deliberate fashion to avoid having to remove the 501 streetcar tracks when a straight line from Roncy to Carlaw could've sufficed. But I digress.

 

[asher__jo]

Though, we really should have dedicated bus lanes or even makeshift BRTs on Yonge Street whenever the subway is shut down. The shuttle buses aren't cutting it.

I smell potential of a pilot project

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

DRL or Ontario Line may not surpass YUS or BD in ridership totals but that's hardly the point. Both YUS and BD ought to decline in ridership if and when the full U of the Ontario Line (Mt Dennis to Science Centre) is completed.

Ridership totals is also a misleading figure for rapid transit anyway, because the three lines mentioned would all have different commuter patterns. The Relief Line (when built to Sheppard) was projected to exceed both YUS and BD in ridership at morning and late afternoon peak hour. Meanwhile, both YUS and BD will have more mid-day, afternoon, and evening ridership during the non-peak periods, which when added together, increases their total ridership numbers to surpass that of the Relief Line.

For me, it's a moot conversation. The Relief Line/Ontario Line will serve its purpose by improving commutes for those who use it, and importantly, expands rapid transit coverage to larger parts of the city. The only real question is if the Ontario Line as proposed by Metrolinx will have the capacity to handle peak hour ridership on day 1 (and on day 10,001).

 

[Streety McCarface]

You cannot make broad sweeping comparisons like that. The bus network in Toronto carries more passengers than the subway system but obviously subways cant replace every bus route, same way subways cannot replace every streetcar route. So saying 500K passengers per day for the entire streetcar network (including 512, and parts of 503 and 501 which venture way outside of downtown) is superior to a DRL at 250k passengers per day because of the limits of its coverage area is disingenuous.

Yes, I can, because back then, it would have been just that: A streetcar network, or an additional subway line downtown and through old Toronto, or nothing at all.

I also mentioned that the streetcar network covers areas of Old Toronto. The subway line would do the same, so that's a moot point.

Finally, the TTC network is so incredibly well integrated, that without any one of the 3 major modes: Streetcars, Subways, and Buses, the whole system falls apart. The Yonge and Bloor lines existed back then, and they weren't nearly at capacity. Keeping the streetcar network ensured that transit ridership remained strong throughout downtown and old Toronto.

DRL or Ontario Line may not surpass YUS or BD in ridership totals but that's hardly the point. Both YUS and BD ought to decline in ridership if and when the full U of the Ontario Line (Mt Dennis to Science Centre) is completed.

Comparing the DRL to Line 1 or Line 2 makes no sense: Line 1 is really two different lines, and Line 2 serves a completely different purpose. The relief line is projected to see about as many, or more people than the spadina subway, but fewer than the Yonge subway, so it's existence is more than justified.

My point was, and I am shocked at how much backlash I got for it, was that the DRL could have been built 40 years ago had NIMBYs (or YIMBYs?) not protested so vocally to keep the streetcar network in tact. Even how the Ontario Line is aligned now seems to be in a deliberate fashion to avoid having to remove the 501 streetcar tracks when a straight line from Roncy to Carlaw could've sufficed. But I digress.

You got backlash for it because it was a statement without any evidence to support it. There's no reason people wouldn't have wanted the subway network to expand, even with ICTS. If it means closing the queen streetcar through downtown, so be it, but the rest of the network would have still remained intact. They were fighting to keep the streetcar network in existence.