I'm probably not the only one who has speculated about running the DRL straight down to Lakeshore then going over the Don on what is now the ramps from the Gardiner. Elevated stations at Cherry and Unilever. But it would be tricky to get it back under ground and hook up to Union.
Hm, that's actually a rather interesting idea, and I've never heard it mentioned here before. Though I'm dubious about it being workable, I think it's a great example of planning transit / city-building holistically and in conjunction with other nearby projects (e.g Gardiner rebuild/realignment, EBF streetcar, DRL, Lower Don Lands redevelopment, etc).
@crs1026's idea is also interesting, particularly in that it shares a lot of parallels with the original
original 1985 DRL. Which was shortlisted from three alignments, down to one (this one having a route from Eastern east of the Don, along and overtop USRC to Union,
or a possible tunnel along Front to Union.
Though IMO both of these ideas brings the DRL too far south. We've already got plans for transit along the waterfront, and I think a DRL near Lake Shore, Eastern, or Front might be cutting too close to the waterfront LRT's catchment.
I'm more upbeat about the prospects of the surface subway. The obvious downside is, as you note, less ideal station placement in downtown's eastern shoulder (~Dundas or Gerrard). In the context of the overall project this seems fairly minor though. That station will probably have modest ridership and wouldn't suffer hugely from being located 400m to the east. It seems the main ridership purpose of the DRL is to connect major East-West routes to the CBD. The surface option gives the most flexibility to expand as far north as possible.
Given that the segment from Yonge to Danforth will only ever have 2-3 stations, it's likely it won't contribute hugely to improving local transit in that area. Subways in general are a poor way to service local travel demand since access times are significant and vehicle speeds are less determinative of total travel times.
Fair enough. And I'm personally trying to accept the reality that all levels of government (even the City) will want to do this as cheap as possible. We have a century of evidence that shows this. This is why I think Mlinx's "Surface Subway" does have certain merit (north of Danforth). However, south of Danforth I think it could easily be morphed into the City/TTC Option A. So south of Danforth we get proper subway stations in well-populated areas (unlike Metrolinx's proposal to run a subway along the volatile Lower Don floodplain, bypassing tens of thousands in the process). But
north of Danforth we can have a lower-cost, higher-speed surface subway (with stations at Thorncliffe Park, Eglinton, York Mills, and Sheppard.
Naturally though, I'd much rather have a real deal subway line going all the way to Pape, up Pape, then under Don Mills to Sheppard. We've built deep bore heavy rail subways in unpopulated Big Box industrial scrubland in Vaughan (where preexisting bus ridership can be counted on ones fingers), so I don't see why we coudn't do the same in the highest density downtown of North America's 4th largest city.
I tried to make a map of all the plans that exist right now (and the 1985 "DRL" for comparison). The narrow lines are where a detailed alignment has been given, and the blurrier lines are ones that haven't yet been aligned in detail. The Metrolinx Short/Long proposal in YRNS is vague, and their map of the route does seem a bit dodgy - but I've tried to transcribe it so it can be included it as well. *
the map looks a bit crazy, but if you know which line is which and who's forwarding the proposal for each, it's easier to understand (I hope).
