regardless you are still skipping 45% of your ridership. again, it isn't worth saving a couple hundred million to bypass 45% of your ridership. To refute that 45% of ridership isn't a large portion of the ridership is silly. That's the difference between a full train and one with seats to spare. you essentialy argued against yourself there by saying your version of the DRL would only be 65% effective as my version of the DRL all to save a stupid transfer that people couldn't care less if it existed or not.
By that logic, why not put the DRL down Parliament and connect at Castle Frank? After all, it's even further west than Pape, and could capture a significantly higher percentage of B-D riders.
It's also worth noting that the only station between Victoria Park and Pape that is over 20K per day is Main Street, which would have a DRL stop as well. 2nd most is Coxwell at 16K, which is where I suggest the other station go. The other stations are a combined 33K. That's half of what Kennedy alone handles. I would also venture to say that many of those riders are arriving via buses. There's nothing to say that those bus routes can't be modified to run to either Main Street, Coxwell, or Gerrard Square Stations, depending on which is closer.
By routing all of the subway traffic from Scarborough onto a line already destined for downtown, you also save money on not having to design a massive interchange station in order to move people from one line to another. You eliminate the possibility of creating another choke point on the system. Plus by building the DMLRT instead, you get an RT line that goes much further north than a subway likely ever will in our lifetime. That extra utility IMO outweighs a few transfers for eastern Danforthers that aren't made any more convenient (I don't want to say inconvenient, because the reality is, at worst, their trip pattern will remain identical to what it is today).
I thought it would be nice if Vic Park could be changed to have 2 centre platform stations. One would have the Westbound DRL and the Westbound terminus of the B-D. The Other would have the Eastbound DRL and the Eastbound terminus of the B-D. (Sort of a modified version of the stacked tunnels at Lionel Groulx). Different lines would have to cross with this and I do not know if the elevations could work out without significant changes. Also, the construction staging for this would be much more complex.
Very good analysis, thanks! And yes, I would prefer to see a 3 track, 2 platform solution at Victoria Park as well. If that requires a new station, so be it. It's not like Pape or Donlands wouldn't need to undergo significant renovations in order to accommodate the DRL under pretty much any other scenario as well.
