Toronto Ontario Line 3 | ?m | ?s

[44 North]

Oh I don't disagree with any of that, I'm just saying that they're not overly big problems. Whether it's 50 feet or 90 feet, deep stations aren't uncommon and function perfectly well. Sure it would be expensive to build, but the DRL will get so much ridership that the expense will be well worth it. Subways by their very nature work best when they're built through densely populated, challenging environments. We've done suburban subways at the expense of downtown for so long in Toronto that it's easy to forget that.

TBH I’ve always felt the DRL will be a deep line regardless of the Don’s existence. Even without the river we’ve still got hurdles like the PATH, bored University/Spadina line, Enwave, enormous foundations for buildings in the financial district... There’s no question the DRL will be deep. It has to be.

I guess one reason I tried to poke holes in the idea of tunnelling under the Don is to garner interest in my “Don Line” fantasy map, particularly in how I used Riverdale Park as a location to bridge the DRL. Perhaps I wanted to make a point that it is still feasible and quasi-realistic to provide a non-tunnelled rapid transit alternative to cross the valley south of Bloor.

I also find Toronto’s physical geography and subsurface geology somewhat interesting, and worthy of sharing. The knowledge about what’s down below is still ongoing. After my post last night I stumbled on an EA concerning the future tunnelling of a Coxwell Trunk Sewer bypass through the Don Valley. In the report the engineering firm made some interesting acknowledgements about unstudied discrepancies in the Lower Don (e.g geophysical anomalies regarding bedrock valleys which warranted further borehole drilling). I made some relevant highlights that I may post some other time.

Wouldn't this be most desired? Tunnel under Adelaide, entrances to both King and Queen via escalators and PATH connections, convert Queen street to a pedestrianized street with streetcar ROW and remove King streetcar allowing for downtown traffic?

That's what I feel as well. Richmond or Adelaide make a great compromise in the long-running King vs Queen debate. And because of the depth, entrances and exits for the stations could be designed to lead to both King and Queen. And I feel either road would be easier to tunnel under and stage construction than King or Queen. And yeah, removing streetcars from one downtown street makes a lot of sense if there's a tunnel in place.

 

[crs1026]

And yeah, removing streetcars from one downtown street makes a lot of sense if there's a tunnel in place.

Removing streetcars from one street would probably be a fair trade politically for dedicated street car lanes on the other. Hopefully a DRT or ST or whatever tunnel on this route would lead to improvement of the current street car service, it doesn't remove the need altogether.

- Paul

 

[khris]

Could we not have above ground subway like Chicago or NYC does, on Adelaide or Richmond?

 

[WislaHD]

Here is my take. DRL is blue, SmartTrack is red, GO-RER is purple, WWLRT is cyan.

DRL under Adelaide in the core, and along Queen out west where it is easier to tunnel. I'm not sure if the way I angled the route between Bathurst and Strachan is ideal but the DRL is supposed to be a deep tunnel anyway. WWLRT along Lakeshore as with SmartTrack and GO-RER we don't need to duplicate service and I think efforts are better put to serving Exhibition Place, BMO Field and Ontario Place.

GO-RER will need a station at Sunnyside, probably a tunneled pedestrian connection to reach the rest of Sunnyside interchange station.

 

[nfitz]

Could we not have above ground subway like Chicago or NYC does, on Adelaide or Richmond?

In the centre of downtown? NYC replaced the elevated subway portions in the central Manhattan area decades ago. And isn't the central loop section of the Chicago EL all underground?

 

[wopchop]

In the centre of downtown? NYC replaced the elevated subway portions in the central Manhattan area decades ago. And isn't the central loop section of the Chicago EL all underground?

No, the loop is aboveground.

 

[Hopkins123]

In the centre of downtown? NYC replaced the elevated subway portions in the central Manhattan area decades ago. And isn't the central loop section of the Chicago EL all underground?

The EL (Brown, Pink, Green, Purple, Orange Lines) is elevated through the core. In fact, all the subways are at-grade or above grade in Chicago except for the parts of the Red and Blue Lines that do pass through downtown.

 

[nfitz]

No, the loop is aboveground.

Is it? I've only used the Blue Line from the Airport into downtown. I thought it was all underground through downtown. Looking at Google Maps ... hmm, how did I miss that elevated bit ... I must have walked under it at night; I haven't spent that much time in downtown Chicago.

The question is, would they build it that way today in Chicago. Reading the history, it looks like they haven't built any elevated downtown since 1800s, and the lines downtown since then have been underground.

 

[Hopkins123]

Whether be King, Wellington, Queen, Richmond, Adelaide, or Dundas should be determined based on the results of the modelling to indicate which locations best relieves Bloor-Yonge station. Though I fear going further north, would leave the SmartTrack unable to provide much good east-west service, unless it was tunelled in it's own right-of-way under the rail corridor.

Well, the SmartTrack I'm proposing doesn't follow the rail corridor through the core. It would depart from it at the West Don Lands then follow Mill St and the Esplanade to Union Station then follow Front Street West to merge back with the rail corridor west of Bathurst. So parallel to the rail corridor but with easier pedestrian access and closer to high density areas like the Distillery and St Lawrence.

A further north DRL/Queen subway means most of downtown major destinations gets good subway access. A King alignment leaves too much of a gap between King and Dundas to be of much use, and overlaps too much with SmartTrack/GO RER. Even Metrolinx in its documents illustrates a DRL following Queen and has mentioned a Union bypass tunnel running across Queen.

I liken having two downtown subways running parallel to each other as similar to what Montreal has in place with a major arterial (Rene Levesque Blvd/ King St) running in between but easy walking distance of either subway line.

 

[rbt]

The EL (Brown, Pink, Green, Purple, Orange Lines) is elevated through the core. In fact, all the subways are at-grade or above grade in Chicago except for the parts of the Red and Blue Lines that do pass through downtown.

Now calculate it by customer/train flow. You'll find closer to (or possibly well above) half of Chicago's ridership comes in through the underground portion.

 

[JGHali]

Wouldn't this be most desired? Tunnel under Adelaide, entrances to both King and Queen via escalators and PATH connections, convert Queen street to a pedestrianized street with streetcar ROW and remove King streetcar allowing for downtown traffic?

Those would be pretty long tunnels - going all the way from Adelaide under Richmond to Queen? Have you thought this through?

Removing streetcar lines - i.e. local service - because there are a handful of stops west of University makes little sense. It's not very likely that any DRL will track west of downtown except in a remote "Phase III", and won't eliminate the need for local transit on major streets like King.

Further the idea that one must come up with a political "compromise" that screws over people living in King as a sop to Fordian drivers is ludicrous.

 

[gweed123]

Removing streetcars from one street would probably be a fair trade politically for dedicated street car lanes on the other. Hopefully a DRT or ST or whatever tunnel on this route would lead to improvement of the current street car service, it doesn't remove the need altogether.

- Paul

Agreed. In many of my maps, I have the GO REX DRL under King, with an at-grade streetcar ROW along Queen. King would either become a 4 lane road or a 3 lane road (centre turning lane), and Queen would either become a 2 lane road + ROW or a completely car-free space.

 

[gweed123]

Now calculate it by customer/train flow. You'll find closer to (or possibly well above) half of Chicago's ridership comes in through the underground portion.

Yes, but that's purely a function of the routing. The Red Line has the ability to use the loop to go through downtown, and indeed in previous configurations (prior to introduction of the colour coded routes) it did. They could just as easily route the Orange Line through the State Street Subway, and the Red Line through the loop. Yes, the Red Line has the most ridership, but that's mainly because of it's suburban catchment areas, plus the virtue of being the longest line, as opposed to how it crosses downtown.

 

[MisterF]

This has been discussed in parallel on the Fantasy Maps page, but maybe here is more appropriate. Here's my take, with tunnel portals near the West Donlands and Bathurst Yard.....and like others have noted, you could initially run these trains above ground through Union. You could also tunnel over to York Mills/Eglinton, and north to then rejoin the Richmond Hill line north of Lawrence. If at least the northern the tunnel is like CrossRail and can handle double-decker cars, you could run the main Richmond Hill GO service through the northern tunnels too, essentially eliminating all the weaving through the Don Valley from the line. Perhaps down at the south end, the full GO trains would run above ground to Union, and the shorter RER trains would use the DRL tunnel downtown.

Interesting idea, but the line misses Riverdale, Pape Village, and Thorncliffe Park. And the transfer at Danforth is awkward at best. That transfer needs to be made as convenient as possible.

Those would be pretty long tunnels - going all the way from Adelaide under Richmond to Queen? Have you thought this through?

Removing streetcar lines - i.e. local service - because there are a handful of stops west of University makes little sense. It's not very likely that any DRL will track west of downtown except in a remote "Phase III", and won't eliminate the need for local transit on major streets like King.

Further the idea that one must come up with a political "compromise" that screws over people living in King as a sop to Fordian drivers is ludicrous.

There seems to be a belief on sites like this that subways aren't for local service. Where did this belief come from? A DRL can replace at least one streetcar line just as the subways on Yonge and Bloor did. That's what subways are supposed to do - provide local and medium distance service in highly dense urban environments that surface rail lines don't reach. There's no reason for downtown DRL stations to be any farther apart than on the Bloor line.

 

[Johnny Au]

If the portion of the DRL were to be elevated downtown, it should be aesthetically pleasing (with public condoned street art of course for civic pride and to discourage graffiti) and needs to have sunlight penetrate the street below.