A Don Mills Subway For Toronto
http://stevemunro.ca/?p=8770
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My proposed alignment is not intended to be definitive although parts of it are locked down to make specific connections and to take into account physical constraints on the route’s placement. Other alignments are possible in places, but I don’t want to revisit that discussion in excruciating detail when the basic purpose is to show what a new line could achieve.
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Spadina & Front Station: This station would be part of a proposed Metrolinx/GO western Union Station to be used by services originating in the northwest corridor so that capacity at Union can be released for remaining routes. An extension west from this location to serve new development at Exhibition Place, for example, would be possible.
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St. Andrew Station: The station is nominally at King, but the structure extends somewhat to the south. A parking garage sits on top of the subway structure, and a pathway through it could link a station at Wellington into the existing St. Andrew Station.
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King Station: The box making up King Station extends well south of King Street and includes the Melinda Street exit on the west side of Yonge as a reference point. A station at Wellington would be only a short distance south of King Station.
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Jarvis Street (St. Lawrence Market): This location is a major centre for the community and far enough east of Yonge to serve a distinct set of demands.
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Distillery District: There are two possible locations for this station at either Parliament or Cherry Street. Cherry has the advantage that it would be a connection point for the north-south streetcar service that will eventually serve the eastern waterfront and port lands developments. The stumbling block for such a connection is expansion of the underpass at the rail corridor, but that is a question of will, money and the timing of future development.
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Broadview & Eastern: This station would serve the Great Gulf development and improve access to this corner of the waterfront in general.
- For many years, the TTC has shown the DRL as ending at Pape and Danforth. Recent reports on a DRL study mentioned the need for a wye junction with the Danforth subway so that trains could reach Greenwood Yard. Building such a structure would have severe effects on existing buildings at Pape and Danforth.
- That is why my proposed alignment continues east (as some of the early TTC schemes did) to the west side of Greenwood Subway Yard. This would provide a link to the existing network without the need to build a new junction somewhere under the Danforth. At the yard, the route would turn north mainly under what is now parkland and cross Danforth at
Donlands Station where it would connect to the Danforth subway.
- Continuing north on Donlands, there could be stations at Mortimer and at O’Connor. North of O’Connor, the line would cross the Don Valley on a medium height bridge. The exact nature of the bridge would be a trade-off between cost, the depth of the subway at each portal, and the aesthetics of the valley crossing.
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Thorncliffe Park is a major concentration for housing with a lot of underutilized commercial space. The exact location of a station here would depend on the alignment that proves workable. In the map, it is at Overlea & Thorncliffe Park East as a placeholder.
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Flemingdon Park is another major housing concentration, but it is fairly spread out and will require a bus feeder to connect most potential riders to the subway. In this proposal, I have sited the station at the north branch of Gateway Blvd. (the south branch is directly opposite Overlea at Don Mills) and near enough to the Science Centre that it could also serve as its local stop.
- Finally, there would be a station at Don Mills & Eglinton where the line would connect with the Eglinton Crosstown LRT. Future extension could take the subway further north including a possible link to a future GO service on the CPR corridor south of Barber Greene Road. That is years from happening, but so is this plan.
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