The Eglinton West portion of the line would hardly be used..
On the whole I think this is a decent proposal, and a good notion of what GTA regional rail could look like. Some aspects are a bit odd, and I wouldn’t want to accept it as is, but this is a good starting point for how to start a RER type system in Toronto.
I’d personally add stations where the line intersects with the the streetcars downtown, to improve connectivity to local services (which would add about two stations between Liberty Village and Dundas West. I’d also add one or two stations between the Unilever site and Union. The Eglinton West portion of this is a bit odd…
Depending on the connection with the transitway though, it could well generate more ridership than a connection to YYZ (which, presumably, could be served by a future branch anyways). It wouldn't necessarily surprise me if Eglinton West got more ridership than serving YYZ (a site whose overall significance as a transit destination has been hugely exaggerated by almost everyone.
And why is the connection to 2BD all the way at Main Station? Further west would provide greater relief value, as well as make a future Don Mills subway possible. There wouldn't be any less service in the east if he did this since there'd still be 15 minute all day GO service there.
A connection at Pape probably would generate slightly more transfers, but likely not a huge difference. Donlands, Greenwood and Woodbine are fairly low ridership stations which, presumably, wouldn’t hugely impact link volumes. Offsetting the lower ridership at Main and Kennedy, there would be two interchanges rather than one, which would improve diversion. Compared to current commutes, an earlier interchange would also lead to shorter commutes since relatively more time would be spent on the ‘express’ line vs. BD, which in turn would lead to a greater propensity to take the express route in the first place.
As it is, the DRL would only be <5minutes quicker than the status quo. A trip from Kennedy to Union would go from nearly 20 stops to 5 or 6, and a trip from Main Station would go from about 15 to 4 or 5. Further, riders on feeder routes in Scarborough who would normally feed into the DRL via BD would be partialy diverted by the line along the Stouffville Corridor, as well as Finch, Steeles and Sheppard riders who currently feed onto Yonge.
Whether or not the Smartrack (Stupid name…) precludes a ‘Don Mills subway’ is kind of irrelevant, since evidence suggests such a line would have miserable ridership. Insertnamehere has made this point repeatedly; ridership would never, ever, justify a subway north of Danfroth along Pape/Don Mills.
'This line doesn't serve downtown and won't relieve the streetcar networks.’
Well, that’s a tricky goal. It would be extremely difficult to build a subway line along King or Queen to do that. While any subway would obviously be quicker than our miserable streetcars, faster travel speeds would be swamped pretty quickly by higher access times due to (necessarily) wider station spacing and deep stations. The DRL stud showed just how little a King subway would do in terms of ‘relieving’ the streetcar network.
