Toronto Union Pearson Express | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | MMM Group Limited

44 North said:
But it's not fully grade-separated though. With full grade-separation comes both road and rail separations, this one doesn't have the latter. Look at the section through Etobicoke, surely that would limit it becoming anything beyond a 15min service. I'm down with using the term subway/metro when appropriate, but personally wouldn't in the UPX scenario.
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Does this mean that any subway with cross-over tracks is not grade-separated because of the possibility of opposite direction trains inadvertently occupying the same segment of track? Grade-separated means that the there is no unauthorized train traffic on the line so it can be fully managed. Once you open it to vehicular traffic, there is no assurance that they will not inadvertently cross gates - so it is no longer grade separated.
If you look back, it did not say that Grade-separated is metro. It said that grade-separated, along with electrification and more frequent service, it basically considered a metro.
 
It doesn't matter what people in other parts of the world consider subway - it matters what Torontonians consider subway, just as the St Clair streetcar wasn't "subway-like" when David Miller said it would be.
 
I'll have a Subway Club. Footlong 9-grain. With Chedder. Yes, toasted. Okay, I'll have the tomato, lettuce, both olives, hot peppers. And yes, chipotle. And salt & pepper please. I'll have chocolate milk and one chocolate chip cookie. Ok, I'm tapping. Beep.

(meanwhile, multiple billions of dollars appear on the PINpad, and my card is declined. The subway artist is upset.)
 
TrickyRicky said:
Get anyone making regional transit decisions a plane ticket to Tokyo. New York and London are amateurs. Seamless urban core, metro, and national rail. JP rail does the heavy lifting and the subway systems (bizarre privatized duopoly) takes care of the last mile. Toronto planners and politicians desperately need to visit.

The elephant in the room of a city-region with big aspirations is that eventually you can’t just feed the core. Tokyo is decentralized with multiple downtowns locates as hubs along the main circular circuit.

Smart planning in Toronto for the future isn’t about what the mode is called or even what it is. It’s about identifying how we can eventually decentralize the system and where the hubs will be. Maybe one hub is Union, one is Pearson. If so connect the crap out of them, and radiate feeds out from there.

The Japanese understand system architecture, the Germans understand system architecture, we are clueless.
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I'm in agreement about following Japan's example, but you keep referring to "Smart planning" and "planners" as the reason for Tokyo's success. If by "planners" you mean "urban planners", then you're mistaken. The reason Japan has so much liveable density and little mini downtowns at each train station isn't because of painstaking, highly regulated planning and zoning. It's because of their *lack* of zoning and urban planning that such liveable densities and mixes of uses exist.

In Japan, the federal government has removed almost all local control from land use planning and streamlined zoning into a handful of inclusionary categories that allowed multiple uses.

This de-regulation is what allows TOD at all the stations. It's the reason that Japan's rail lines are able to use land value capture to turn the greatest profit of any rail operator in the world. It's the reason that the city of Tokyo (pop 10 million) grants 142 000 new housing starts per year, when all of California (pop 39 mil) grants 87 000. It's the reason that in the world's largest city, despite a growing population rents are actually declining.

If we learn anything from Japan, it should be to remove control from local NIMBYs and regulate land use at a provincial or national level.
 
BurlOak said:
Does this mean that any subway with cross-over tracks is not grade-separated because of the possibility of opposite direction trains inadvertently occupying the same segment of track? Grade-separated means that the there is no unauthorized train traffic on the line so it can be fully managed. Once you open it to vehicular traffic, there is no assurance that they will not inadvertently cross gates - so it is no longer grade separated.
If you look back, it did not say that Grade-separated is metro. It said that grade-separated, along with electrification and more frequent service, it basically considered a metro.
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But the subway crosses over with itself, so it's still a closed system. UPX seems to cross over with mainline railway - GO, VIA, occasional freight. Which in turn could stymie the potential for service frequencies better than 15mins. Lines 1-4 would never have that problem.

mdrejhon said:
I'll have a Subway Club. Footlong 9-grain. With Chedder. Yes, toasted. Okay, I'll have the tomato, lettuce, both olives, hot peppers. And yes, chipotle. And salt & pepper please. I'll have chocolate milk and one chocolate chip cookie. Ok, I'm tapping. Beep.

(meanwhile, multiple billions of dollars appear on the PINpad, and my card is declined. The subway artist is upset.)
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Probably for the best the card was declined since instead of a subway you would've gotten a submarine, notorious for being lemons.
 
44 North said:
But the subway crosses over with itself, so it's still a closed system. UPX seems to cross over with mainline railway - GO, VIA, occasional freight. Which in turn could stymie the potential for service frequencies better than 15mins. Lines 1-4 would never have that problem.
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An analogy may be an airport.
  • Assume a military airport, where all flights are from 1 entity (Air Force) and a completely closed system - how many flights can use the airport per hour.
  • Now a commercial airport there are several users. All are professional pilots and under strict control to be at the right spot at the right time. How much does this affect the capacity of the airport? Not much.
  • If we allowed George Jetson (and several million other people) to fly over the airport and simply trust that they will stop or stay away when a jet is landing or taking off, then I would expect the airport capacity to drop significantly
 
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Reecemartin said:
As much as I love IC cards etc. this type of functionality really doesn't need to exist in Canada. From my visits there Japan is still a very cash-centric society and credit cards are rarely accepted. IC cards fill the inconvenient gap left here, in Canada contactless payment is actually already super prevalent and perhaps even better because we have one standard across all of NA, and that's just using Bank/Credit Cards we already have. After spending the summer in Vancouver where we already have the ability to use Contactless Credit/Debit/Mobile Payments instead of Compass (our Presto Equivalent) and the system is honestly great. Using my mobile phone I can do virtually all payments (its a Samsung so the pesky 100$ contactless limit doesn't apply) and its incredibly convenient, even moreso than when I was in Japan.
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Is it true that Samsung Pay does not have the $100 limit? I thought that was a bank limit.
 
44 North said:
UPX seems to cross over with mainline railway - GO, VIA, occasional freight. Which in turn could stymie the potential for service frequencies better than 15mins. Lines 1-4 would never have that problem.
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Indeed, there are "flat junctions/level junctions" that would stymie maximizing flow if the UPX was 'upgraded' into a 7.5 or 5 min frequency split between present airport service and RER emu to the Bramalea/Brampton/NW airport region. In the big scheme of things, a flyover would be a relatively simple item. This then renders a choice of a spur coming off from the Pearson ones and continuing NW or looping around the airport, including a GO Bus terminal stop, or continuing northwest, perhaps even rejoining the Georgetown Corridor, or a spur(s) coming off before or after Bramalea to bypass the Brampton bottleneck by tunneling rather than bridging. This has already been touted in the "Pearson Hub" proposal. Making it single decker emu in tunnel would also permit VIA HFR and/or "high speed" stock to also use it.

From prior information, I'm led to believe that the UPX track infrastructure, signalling and control is good for 7.5 min interval if not better. So one has to wonder how such a potential is being so underused? Don't get me wrong, I fully support AD2W Georgetown corridor fourth corridor track addition, with all the contingent promises, but surely something more can be done and done now with the present UPX infrastructure, which was always touted to be the "first to be electrified".

It wouldn't even render the present Nippon Sharyos obsolete or redundant. They can continue to terminate at Pearson as dedicated airport shuttle until eventually electrified, and same at the dedicated Union platform, but RER emu can continue on at each end as as extension. THIS could be SmartTrack, not sharing track and stations with the present low platform diesel DD.
 
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W. K. Lis said:
Can we "transfer" from the UPX southbound to Union Station and transfer to a westbound Lakeshore GO train to the Exhibition Station? And vice-versa? Anyone tried it?
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Do it all the time and, as instructed by GO, if you tap on at Weston or Bloor and use the GO Presto machines then you DO NOT tap off at Union you simply get on a GO train and tap off at the Ex.

On your return (again assuming you are headed for Weston or Bloor) tap on at Exhibition and tap off when you reach your destination.....you will be fair checked on the UP but that tap on at the EX is valid.
 
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