Toronto Ontario Line 3 | ?m | ?s

I wonder if the comments about Front remain true given the widening of Union Station and the new accesses that have been built between Union Station and the subway. I sure would hate to see all that area dug up......*again*.

If the relief line goes ahead, there will be considerable construction pain anyways. My vote would be to get this right - ie rather than feeling tied to Queen or Front, decide on the best alignment, and suck up the impact. The one good thing about the shift in politics around transit - if we have to dig up a main thoroughfare up to save money, the public will be more understanding, even if they find it painful - especially if it's done because it's the much cheaper option.

If Mr Tory is getting a true view of Crossrail, he will have seen the many surface portals that this construction has, and will have no illusions about new tunnelling in downtown Toronto being painlesss.

Having learned that Queen/University also has been underpinned - maybe the 501 streetcar deserves a tunnel there too eventually, reducing congestion and improving travel time thru the downtown core.

- Paul
 
The Crossrail comparison is a pretty important one. Even that by all accounts well-executed project has created enormous disruption. At Tottenham Court Road, one of the main road and Tube junctions in central London, there have been years-long street closures and extensive demolitions of all kinds of buildings. The Central Line platforms have been closed almost all year to allow for construction, knocking out a major interchange. At Bond Street nearby there have similarly been extensive demolitions and a large square has been encased in construction hoarding for about three years. At Moorgate, same story -- oh, with the added bonus of a beautiful park having to be "temporarily" closed for construction staging. It's been closed since late 2009.

None of this is to say that Crossrail isn't a phenomenal and necessary piece of infrastructure. Only that any underground construction on that scale, in a dense urban area, is immensely disruptive. Cost of doing business, sadly -- but one can only imagine the screams in the media we will hear when similar sacrifices have to be made in Toronto.
 
crs1026 said:
Having learned that Queen/University also has been underpinned - maybe the 501 streetcar deserves a tunnel there too eventually, reducing congestion and improving travel time thru the downtown core.
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I'd hope we could bundle any project - whether it be a DRL and a streetcar tunnel, or a DRL and RER tunnel. Not necessarily along the same corridor, but more as a cost-saving and logistics measure. Increased severity, but shorter duration. I think we all know that "eventually" building something in TO usually leads to never, so it'd be nice if we could just set loose four TBMs right across downtown in one go. Wishful thinking, I know.

Though one idea I've envisioned for tunneling was to follow two streets for the DRL (say, Wellington and King) - with a single tunnel below each. But rather than opening up the surface along either E/W street to carve out a station, we'd put boxes and access infrastructure in along N/S streets and tunnel the stations out from there. St Patrick and QP were built in a similar manner, and as a means of causing less surface disruption. I'm not certain, but I'd imagine that shutting down small sections of lesser-used N/S streets would dampen the chaos than tearing up large sections of major E/W roads.
 
W. K. Lis said:
If the 510/509 got a tunnel (from Queen's Quay to Union), then the 501/502, and even 504, should get tunnels. Still build the DRL, however.
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Well, a streetcar tunnel along Queen or King and a DRL along one of those same corridors is a bit overkill don't you think?
 
Hopkins123 said:
Well, a streetcar tunnel along Queen or King and a DRL along one of those same corridors is a bit overkill don't you think?
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Considering the ridership is there, and that we're building deep bore heavy rail under places like this and soon this - I definitely don't think it's overkill. When factoring in past and future precedents, it's reasonable to think we should have at least five new underground lines through downtown.
 
sixrings said:
Whatever happened to no parking on streetcar Streets as a solution?
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It's the solution for fixing the 504 congestion, and inability to run a service.

And personally, I think it's been working very well; I haven't seen the kind of problems on King and with 504 this year, like last. What have you seen?

It doesn't solve the bigger picture though. Particularly with all the new development both on King East and King West.
 
sixrings said:
Whatever happened to no parking on streetcar Streets as a solution?
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Actually the city recently implemented some additional rush hour restrictions and no-left-turn restrictions in the core as an effort to speed streetcars based on delay data. Not sure how it's working yet.

I find the bigger problem than parking is left turns. Even at off-peak hours when there's enough traffic and cars wanting to turn left, I've seen it take 2 light cycles for a streetcar to clear an intersection. That is unacceptable.
 
My preference would be to build the RER DRL under King/Wellington/Front (from west to east) and then turn Queen into a transit/pedestrian/cycling only street from Roncesvalles to River. With the King streetcar removed, vehicular traffic could be redirected seamlessly onto King, since Roncesvalles and River are where King and Queen meet.

The vision that I have is for wider sidewalks on either side, followed by a dedicated transit ROW, with bike lanes dividing the two transit directions. The bike lane section would be down the middle of the roadway, and wide enough to allow for emergency vehicles to use it. Given that there are 2 hospitals on (or nearly on) that Queen corridor, having a traffic-free E-W emergency route through downtown may actually speed up emergency response times.

It would provide much more efficient transit along that route without the massive expense of tunnelling (save that for the DRL). It would provide an enhanced pedestrian experience on one of the busiest commercial corridors in the city, and it would provide a continuous E-W bike route through downtown. Vehicular traffic can be shifted to King and Richmond/Adelaide, and property access can be maintained using back lanes and adjacent side streets (many of which end at Queen anyway).

In this setup, the King RER DRL would serve mainly suburban Toronto and the inner 905 while having stops at some key intersections, while the Queen LRT ROW would provide enhanced local service for neighbourhoods along that route. It should also be noted that this could largely remove the need for the WWLRT, since if Lake Shore in Etobicoke is upgraded with a ROW, you'd have a continuous LRT ROW from Long Branch to the Don River.
 
A year or two ago the TTC released a map showing the ridership/capacity ratio at AM peak hour at all stations on the Yonge line. Does anyone remember what report this cake from?
 
How many passengers board the 504, 501, etc. versus transferring from another route? If they transfer, most likely they'll be the ones who would actually use any DRL. Passengers who board and pay a fare, would be the ones who would want there to be a local service for themselves.
 
W. K. Lis said:
How many passengers board the 504, 501, etc. versus transferring from another route? If they transfer, most likely they'll be the ones who would actually use any DRL. Passengers who board and pay a fare, would be the ones who would want there to be a local service for themselves.
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Are there a large amount of N-S to E-W transfers onto the 501 or 504? I would think that most of the N-S passengers, particularly if they're north of Queen, would just ride up to Bloor-Danforth and take that for the E-W portion of their trip, unless their destination is right along Queen.
 
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