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

crs1026 said:
You do realise that once you are mayor, all the UT contributors will br invoicing you for their unsolicited consulting offerings?
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That implies they can hold back their advice/opinion long enough to negotiate a rate. You can't jump around waiving your arms yelling corrections and pointing out errors if you want to charge for it.

The UT Lurkers (readers who almost never post but regularly point out errors to themselves) will be the ones sending the invoices.
 
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M II A II R II K said:
If Sheppard were to be extended to STC, it could hook up with Line 2 and be absorbed by it to become one line.
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andrewpmk said:
I think a better idea for Sheppard would be to extend it underground to STC, then extend it further east to Pickering in the middle of Highway 401. The Sheppard subway would be quite useful if it went all the way from the western edge of Toronto to the eastern edge, but a lot of it would have to be built in the middle of the 401 to reduce cost, it would be prohibitively expensive otherwise.
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The Relief Line needs to be built to Sheppard, without question. It is the most effective way to relieve Yonge. That is its purpose.

The only argument for extending Line 4 to STC is a) that is what was originally planned in Network 2011, and b) there are potential fixed costs savings with keeping Relief Line TBMs in the ground and digging both projects at once. This should be costed out and floated by all 3 levels of government. If there is no dedication of funds for the extra cost of a Line 4 extension, then nix it and just build the relief line.

And extending a subway to Pickering?! Completely unnecessary with The Big Move projects planned in the area: Scarborough-Malvern LRT, Highway 2 LRT/BRT, and GO RER.
 
smably said:
Wow, that report is some seriously shoddy work.

Here's what's probably going to happen: having cooked the books in favour of this bizarre surface subway, it will be approved over the underground option that actually makes sense. Meanwhile, Leaside will throw a fit over the loss of of their trail and addition of noisy subway trains bisecting their neighbourhood. Council will vote to tunnel the Leaside section. In the Don Valley, major engineering will be required to flood-proof the new line, further raising the cost. Eventually, cost escalations will make the cost comparable to the full underground DRL and it will be shelved for another 30 years due to lack of funding.
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It's a little convenient to just declare that the underground option "makes sense."

Obviously we shouldn't anoint the surface subway as THE solution based on a single study but people here are just reacting negatively towards it because it challenges the received wisdom that Don Mills NEEDS a subway.

The fact of the matter is the DRL north of Danforth is likely to have very modest ridership. In all likelihood, the Sheppard-Bloor section will top out at <10k riders per hour per direction. That's comparable to the much maligned Scarborough subway.
 
diminutive said:
The fact of the matter is the DRL north of Danforth is likely to have very modest ridership. In all likelihood, the Sheppard-Bloor section will top out at <10k riders per hour per direction. That's comparable to the much maligned Scarborough subway.
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Since when was 10,000 riders per hour per direction poor? That's double Sheppard subway. (and probably quadruple what it would be east of Victoria Park).

The issue with the Scarborough subway is which form of rapid transit to use. Not whether to have one or not. The real question is where should the DRL transition to LRT. Ideally it would be LRT in tunnel all the way like Eglinton - but unlike Eglinton (or Sheppard) the ridership in the central section is too high.
 
diminutive said:
The fact of the matter is the DRL north of Danforth is likely to have very modest ridership. In all likelihood, the Sheppard-Bloor section will top out at <10k riders per hour per direction. That's comparable to the much maligned Scarborough subway.
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The report estimates that the long option would have almost double the ridership of the short option. And only the subway options that go as far as Sheppard would significantly reduce Yonge line ridership, to the point where both lines would have basically the same demand. There's plenty of demand, not to mention network benefits, to justify the subway going north of the Danforth.
 
I recall the peak AM ridership between Sheppard and Eglinton on the DRL LONG is around 7,000 PPHPD; almost twice as much as Sheppard Subway ridership. Between Bloor and Sheppard it's about 10,000.

Keep in mind that there's additional value in the DRL LONG due to dramatically lower usage on Yongle Line. Ridership on Yonge, BD and the DRL would be 20,000 each (Down from 32,000 for Yonge)
 
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nfitz said:
Since when was 10,000 riders per hour per direction poor? That's double Sheppard subway. (and probably quadruple what it would be east of Victoria Park).
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Since always? The TTC has always maintained that ridership under 15,000 pph/pd is too low for subways. Sheppard is universally regarded as being underused relative to its capital and operational costs. And Danforth to Sheppard is nearly twice as long as Yonge to Don Mills, so it's hardly a great achievement to get double the ridership.

(also, the capital costs on new subways have increased, what, 75% since Sheppard in real terms? The ridership threshold ought to be proportionately higher than it was for Sheppard.)

MisterF said:
The report estimates that the long option would have almost double the ridership of the short option
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4 is twice 2 and it's still a small number. Your point is more or less irrelevant to whether the Danforth to Sheppard segment has the ridership to justify the huge capital costs of building and maintaining an underground subway.

TigerMaster said:
Keep in mind that there's additional value in the DRL LONG due to dramatically lower usage on Yongle Line. Ridership on Yonge, BD and the DRL would be 20,000 each (Down from 32,000 for Yonge)
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Right, obviously there are benefits to a DRL Long. But the report also concluded that the vast majority of those benefits could be had through the surface subway option (the surface subway is supposedly better at Yonge diversion, which isn't surprising)

That's was my original kinda comment: 1.)tunnelling is obscenely expensive, 2.)ridership along the north DRL leg is modest at best, 3.)therefore, it's best to try to serve the area without tunnelling. You know, cost/benefit and all that.

People simply don't like to hear that the DRL is not going to have insane ridership, though.
 
I keep seeing this preliminary study. I want to re-post Metrolinx's analysis.

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diminutive said:
Obviously we shouldn't anoint the surface subway as THE solution based on a single study but people here are just reacting negatively towards it because it challenges the received wisdom that Don Mills NEEDS a subway.
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I'm sure some have, but smallby's criticism was fairly spot on in that it pointed out two glaring issues with the Surface Subway. One, running a surface RT line next to the flood-prone and hazardous Lower Don isn't going to happen for obvious reasons. Two, I highly doubt a subway will be running on the surface along the Leaside Spur. Metrolinx was fairly explicit in describing the alignment so it's not like they said it'd be a trenched routing, or some kind of semi-frequent 2-car LRV. This is a high-frequency 7-car subway. Another point is the lack of stations between Broadview and Eglinton/Leslie...the City of Toronto isn't going to support the bypassing of +20k residents in Thornclife Park. Nor the ~25k future residents around WDL/Regent/River Street. So obviously there are issues with the proposal beyond the 'wisdom' of posters on UT.

Another reason for people to have derision toward the YRNS shortlist is the precedence that's been set with our past and future subways. With the exception of the defunct S(L)RT proposal in Scarb, every subway line/extension in the last 20yrs (and every subway project henceforth) has been an all-underground subway with a very high per-km cost. Even for areas in the 905 with suspect ridership projections. No trenched/surface/elevated subways were ever proposed in Vaughan or Markham, so why is it that the DRL can so easily become a denuded quick-fix line? Personally I'll support cost-savings if it means more transit for all, but there's a limit. And I'd still consider it somewhat unfair if the most important subway project in TO's history were to cost the same as a suburban extension like Yonge North (which is only one third the distance).
 
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All or most of what 44North says is true. I don't think the surface subway is very likely, but it could be built, and it would cost less. At the political level, they get to decide whether to spend all of the money for more of a city-building underground line, or save money but divert nearly the same ridership for a lot less money. Isn't it nice to see both on the table so there can be a discussion of what the line is for, instead of just one "best" option?
 
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diminutive said:
It's a little convenient to just declare that the underground option "makes sense."
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Well, in the context of that post, I was being flippant. Others have done a better job of explaining the problems with the surface option -- particularly that it bypasses many of the major trip generators in the DRL corridor.

diminutive said:
The fact of the matter is the DRL north of Danforth is likely to have very modest ridership. In all likelihood, the Sheppard-Bloor section will top out at <10k riders per hour per direction. That's comparable to the much maligned Scarborough subway.
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I think it's a bit simplistic to look at the entire DRL based on the ridership on the least-used section. It would be like suggesting that the entire B-D line be converted to LRT because the Scarborough extension doesn't meet the ridership threshold for heavy rail. Maybe you're right in this case that the DRL north of Danforth doesn't have the ridership to justify a tunneled subway, but the line needs to be continuous to fulfill its role as a relief line. I would have no problem with constructing the northern part of the line as a surface subway if there were a corridor that could serve all the trip generators and didn't face insurmountable political issues. It's not the fact that they're considering a surface subway that bothers me, it's that they seem to be ignoring all the problems that would come with that option and vastly overstating its viability.
 
smably said:
I would have no problem with constructing the northern part of the line as a surface subway if there were a corridor that could serve all the trip generators and didn't face insurmountable political issues. It's not the fact that they're considering a surface subway that bothers me, it's that they seem to be ignoring all the problems that would come with that option and vastly overstating its viability.
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What problems are those?
 
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