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Transit Fantasy Maps

Asterix said:
I'd be willing to bet if you got a real engineering estimate, your bridge cost/km would be at least that of subway, if not more. Which would also happen to be close to 10x the cost per km of surface LRT running in its own center of road right of way (so able to move better than surrounding private auto traffic).
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Yes, there is absolutely no doubt that it will be much more exprensive to cross the reservoir than a median LRT, but a median LRT is slower. For the rest of the route, the median LRT would be more expensive per km because it involves lots of road construction at the same time.

The point of breaking down the cost of the Milau Viaduct was that I figured "here's a bridge that is outrageously expensive". The bridge is taller than First Canadian Place, for god's sake! It's a marvel of modern engineering and required complicated construction tecniques. I figured that a simple bridge over a pond would never be that expensive to build.

Asterix said:
A bridge such as you propose in that location is convoluted and pretty unnecessary. It is that kind of gravy train spending I have a problem with.
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So you don't support my LRT idea. Point taken.
 
It is possible that some people believe having a rapid transit line of some kind through the hydro corridor is worth the engineering challenges and costs of crossing the reservoir.

That said, many of the fantasy plans disregard the actual difficulties and costs of crossing ravines and other natural barriers. This is hardly the first case to gloss over the issue.
 
Quite frankly I don't mean to gloss over the issue. I have acknowledged multiple times that there is a large cost associated with crossing the reservoir. I just happen to think that the cost is worth it because it provides a very fast crosstown route at far less than subway costs.

It's not like it hasn't been done before, there are bridges crossing our ravines all over the place.
 
Regarding Finch West, I believe that LRT will be better off in the street median than in hydro corridor.

Note that traffic lights on Finch are not very frequent, and most of streets crossing Finch cross the HC as well. Hence, if the line runs in HC but still stops at all traffic lights, it won't be significantly faster than in street median. To reach a subway-like speed in HC, those crossing points will have to be grade-separated and that will drive the cost up.

At the same time, many trip generators are on the south side of Finch West (2 hospitals; shopping malls at Jane / Finch; highrises between Dufferin and Wilmington) and it will be difficult to access them from HC.

Interestingly, the preferred alignment might be different for Finch East (between Yonge and Don Mills). There, both the Finch proper and the HC are surrounded by low-rise residentials and probably have similar trip-generating potential; HC might even come out slightly better because it runs next to the mall at Bayview / Cummer. In addition, that part of Finch East is not as wide as Finch West (can look it up at map.toronto.ca). The distance between buildings on Finch East is sufficient for an LRT layout, but the distance between property lines (front yards) is not; and expropriating those front yards will drive the costs up. Instead, the line could run in HC till Don Mills, and then switch to street median east of Don Mills. Using HC might not make it much faster, but might be just cheaper to build.
 
jwill said:
I just meant that its reasonable to present an idea in this thread without walking everyone through all the costs and consequences associated with that idea.
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Not meaning to drag this down to an excessive level of minutia, but what exactly is the reason for presenting ideas in this thread? Either they are ideas that people think might be good ideas to be implemented in the real world (in which case they should be open to constructive critique) or they simply want to show artistic or aesthetically pleasing pictures (which doesn't seem to be entirely relevant to a forum titled 'Transportation and Infrastructure').
 
Asterix said:
Not meaning to drag this down to an excessive level of minutia, but what exactly is the reason for presenting ideas in this thread? Either they are ideas that people think might be good ideas to be implemented in the real world (in which case they should be open to constructive critique) or they simply want to show artistic or aesthetically pleasing pictures (which doesn't seem to be entirely relevant to a forum titled 'Transportation and Infrastructure').
Click to expand...

Critique is one thing, to embark on an all out engineering cost study on someone's fantasy plan is totally another. The creator admitted that a bridge would be costly but if there were a way to come up with funding for than so be it. Some maps here have proposed Lawrence ave lines, just where is funding going to come for that?

My point is that at some point we realize that a fantasy map is just that a fantasy, would be nice to have, map of a transit network and that things such as logistics and construction costs probably aren't relavant for these maps. In the end your cut off on where fantasy ends and practical planning begins are different than mine.
 
Woodbridge_Heights said:
My point is that at some point we realize that a fantasy map is just that a fantasy, would be nice to have, map of a transit network and that things such as logistics and construction costs probably aren't relavant for these maps. In the end your cut off on where fantasy ends and practical planning begins are different than mine.
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So in all seriousness, where is the cut-off between a fantasy of a Finch Hydro corridor LRT that bridges the reservoir while ignoring costs and logistics and a fantasy of subways under every major concession, twice that in LRT and the same again in BRT lines?
 
Asterix said:
So in all seriousness, where is the cut-off between a fantasy of a Finch Hydro corridor LRT that bridges the reservoir while ignoring costs and logistics and a fantasy of subways under every major concession, twice that in LRT and the same again in BRT lines?
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That's just what I was wondering. Why are you getting all upset because I have a bridge that could cost a few hundred million dollars, when there are maps with hundreds and hundreds of kilometers of rapid transit which would cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

As for what I am getting by posting this here? For one, I have discovered that support for an LRT in the Hydro Corridor is much lower than I had thought.

This thread is about people comparing their ideas for what Toronto's transit should be, which generally assume that money is readily available.
 
reaperexpress said:
That's just what I was wondering. Why are you getting all upset because I have a bridge that could cost a few hundred million dollars, when there are maps with hundreds and hundreds of kilometers of rapid transit which would cost hundreds of billions of dollars.
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Didn't realize I was getting all upset and I apologize for not reading every last post in the thread and offering my criticisms in chronological order of every map previously presented in it before addressing yours as the most recent and current one being offered.

As for what I am getting by posting this here? For one, I have discovered that support for an LRT in the Hydro Corridor is much lower than I had thought.
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Fair enough. Do you also know what Hydro's policy or wishes are with respect to significant electrical operations running underneath and in parallel to their high voltage lines (not just cutting across the route perpendicularly)?

(I'll admit I can't quote chapter and verse, but am reasonably certain they would greatly frown upon such a development.)
 
Asterix said:
Fair enough. Do you also know what Hydro's policy or wishes are with respect to significant electrical operations running underneath and in parallel to their high voltage lines (not just cutting across the route perpendicularly)?

(I'll admit I can't quote chapter and verse, but am reasonably certain they would greatly frown upon such a development.)
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I have no idea what Hydro would think. If you think it's an issue, just pretend that it's a BRT line.

I think we've argued this to death. Do you have any opinion on any other part of the map? What do you think of splitting Eglinton at Don Mills, connecting east to the Scarborough LRT and west to the Eglinton Subway?
 
Woodbridge_Heights said:
Some maps here have proposed Lawrence ave lines, just where is funding going to come for that?.
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Responding since my map had a Lawrence LRT. The funding came from the fact that instead of wasting money on a Sheppard Full subway or a full eglinton Subway running those lines as LRT would leave me additional money for a lawrence LRT. Why is a lawrence LRT important? Besides consistancy, and redevelopment? Well if Lawrence was a LRT as well as Eglinton then it could take people off of the Eglinton line. Essentially spreading the amount of people to two lines.
 
sixrings said:
Responding since my map had a Lawrence LRT. The funding came from the fact that instead of wasting money on a Sheppard Full subway or a full eglinton Subway running those lines as LRT would leave me additional money for a lawrence LRT. Why is a lawrence LRT important? Besides consistancy, and redevelopment? Well if Lawrence was a LRT as well as Eglinton then it could take people off of the Eglinton line. Essentially spreading the amount of people to two lines.
Click to expand...

So do you propose to run the Eglinton LRT on the surface or underground in the central section? Above ground it will be slow and unreliable. Underground, it will cost as much as subway, so you'll need a different source of money for the Lawrence LRT.
 
reaperexpress said:
Do you have any opinion on any other part of the map? What do you think of splitting Eglinton at Don Mills, connecting east to the Scarborough LRT and west to the Eglinton Subway?
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Didn't figure my opinions on the rest of the map were so important, but since you asked:
- I don't agree with the idea of making the currently planned Eglinton LRT a full-fledged HRT subway (it definitely needs to be underground though in the central portion).
- DRL - obviously good idea (and should be the next major capital project, before any Sheppard, Yonge or B-D extensions). Exact routing can still be quibbled (and as you mentioned with Union, this will depend hugely on construction logistical issues, not just where people think it would make a pretty line on a map).
- Beyond that, why not get some more TC-style lines to make it a true network and not just isolated lines?
 
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