Transit Fantasy Maps

[jwill]

Why not name one King, and the other St. Andrew. They can both have an out of system transfer to Union, using a well-marked route in the PATH. Presumably we will have smart cards by then, which can allow people to enter Union for free if they recently left st. andrew or king, and vice versa.

 

[dunkalunk]

I think new names could be warrented just to be more specific. Personally I like Financial (For between Bay and Yonge) and York or Simcoe, depending on which side to the University line the other station is placed.

 

[jwill]

I think a valuable change in TTC station naming standards would be to rename their transfer stations based on neighbourhoods, or something else instead of two street names.

I'd love to see Bloor-Yonge and Sheppard-Yonge get new names, as well as integrating GO and TTC station names at Dundas West/Bloor, Main St./Danforth, and Leslie/Oriole.

For King (assuming the DRL connects there) I might suggest 'Exchange', especially if it reaches toward King/Bay. Bloor-Yonge could be midtown, and Shep-Yonge could be North York Centre (and rename current NYC station to something else), etc.

 

[reaperexpress]

I think a valuable change in TTC station naming standards would be to rename their transfer stations based on neighbourhoods, or something else instead of two street names.

I'd love to see Bloor-Yonge and Sheppard-Yonge get new names, as well as integrating GO and TTC station names at Dundas West/Bloor, Main St./Danforth, and Leslie/Oriole.

For King (assuming the DRL connects there) I might suggest 'Exchange', especially if it reaches toward King/Bay. Bloor-Yonge could be midtown, and Shep-Yonge could be North York Centre (and rename current NYC station to something else), etc.

I really like the idea of renaming interchange stations. As well, I would rename stations with similar names, like Lawrence, Lawrence East and Lawrence West.

How about Junction for Dundas West/Bloor? Not only is it in the West Toronto Junction neighbourhood, but it's at the junction of the Bloor Subway, the Georgetown and Milton lines and possibly the DRL sometime in the future.

I would prefer to see the name North York Centre stay where it is, since the current station is closer to the actual centre of development than Sheppard-Yonge.

 

[EnviroTO]

Why not simply have the platform stretch east from St. Andrew and west from King? If you did that, it would only be about 250 metres from the end of one platform to the beginning of the next, and you could access Bay from the west end of the King platform, and the St. Andrew platform would intersect both University and York?

The point would be to have St.Andrew (DRL) station focus on serving Metro Hall and the Entertainment District and have a "fare paid" connection to St.Andrew (University) for people transferring up the University Line, a Union Station (DRL) focusing on the Financial District and people connecting to GO, VIA, and Waterfront services via a "fare paid" tunnel under Bay to Union Station, and the King (DRL) station focused on serving Yonge street and people connecting to the Yonge line. By separating the flow of passengers into three paths based on where they are going the crowds would be more manageable. A single station allowing people to connect to every service and function of the core would create chaos.

The St.Andrew (DRL) platform would be completely west of University with its primary entrance into the Metro Concourse and underground walkway to St.Andrew (University). The Union (DRL) platform would be entirely between Bay and York with the main entrance being the PATH connection between RBC and TD Centre, a second entrance off the PATH connection to 95 Wellington, and a "fare paid" walkway to Union under Bay. The King (DRL) station would be located almost entirely east of Yonge with its main entrance in the PATH connection between BCE Place (or whatever it is called now) and Commerce Court, and a secondary entrance at Scott St.

 

[jwill]

These distances are along Wellington, taken from the city CAD file

Yonge-University = 566m
Bay-York = 275m
University-Simcoe = 125m
Yonge-Church = 292m

So, the three station set-up would have one station reaching about 25m west of Simcoe, and the other reaching about 35m past Victoria (about 140m from Church). All this assumes 150m long stations, which seems reasonable.

There would be about 210m between each station.

 

[GraphicMatt]

With the introduction of Presto cards, aren't 'fare paid' zones kind of irrelevant? If I tap out at St Andrew and then walk to Bay-DRL, the system could recognize that that is a transfer and not bill me an extra fare.

You could essentially make the whole underground PATH system downtown a fare paid zone where all the subways converge by not charging additional fares for people who switch from one line to another downtown.

 

[gweed123]

The point would be to have St.Andrew (DRL) station focus on serving Metro Hall and the Entertainment District and have a "fare paid" connection to St.Andrew (University) for people transferring up the University Line, a Union Station (DRL) focusing on the Financial District and people connecting to GO, VIA, and Waterfront services via a "fare paid" tunnel under Bay to Union Station, and the King (DRL) station focused on serving Yonge street and people connecting to the Yonge line. By separating the flow of passengers into three paths based on where they are going the crowds would be more manageable. A single station allowing people to connect to every service and function of the core would create chaos.

The St.Andrew (DRL) platform would be completely west of University with its primary entrance into the Metro Concourse and underground walkway to St.Andrew (University). The Union (DRL) platform would be entirely between Bay and York with the main entrance being the PATH connection between RBC and TD Centre, a second entrance off the PATH connection to 95 Wellington, and a "fare paid" walkway to Union under Bay. The King (DRL) station would be located almost entirely east of Yonge with its main entrance in the PATH connection between BCE Place (or whatever it is called now) and Commerce Court, and a secondary entrance at Scott St.

Bang on! Exactly what I was thinking, particularly with the point about the dispersal of traffic. Try our best to avoid the Union stampede scenario every morning and afternoon, haha.

 

[Chuck]

Some thoughts:

Regarding connected stations: In Chicago, the downtown platforms on the blue line run continuously between stations. Imagine the King, Queen, and Dundas platforms just continuing seamlessly between stations, staying beside the tracks the entire time and never changing width. Markers on the wall tell you where the train stops. It's really not that confusing.

Regarding station renaming: I'd much rather keep things simple and strictly name stations after the nearest cross street. If there are two Yonge stations or three Lawrence stations, who cares? There are some station names in New York that repeat 3, 4, and even 5 times.

Bloor-Yonge has taught us the dangers of only have 1 transfer point between lines.

If anything, Bloor-Yonge has taught us the dangers of having all 2 million people living in the north and east ends of the city ultimately relying on a single subway line to get right downtown. Even if there were 5 connection points between the lines, there would still be far more people trying to head south on Yonge than there are spots available. That's the real problem.

 

[Fresh Start]

Or... you could simply build a Wellington-aligned DRL like this:

I think you guys might be overthinking the whole crowd dispersal thing. A transfer station need ever resemble the chaos at B-Y with a platform layout that maximizes space and access points. CBD Stn ergo would have both a very long and broad island platform as well two flanking bay platforms. Making the station box wider naturally encourages people to move down the platform area while awaiting trains, lessening the chance of bottlenecks at any given point with even seating lounges in the non-service areas of the platform. Also arriving trains would open on both sides, segregating offloads from boarding passengers (offloads onto the island, boarders from the bays). The TTC is living proof that duo-stations to dissipate crowding at any one point does not work (see: McCowan-SCC; Ellesmere-Midland; Spadina-St George; Bay-Yonge; University Line in contrast to lower Yonge Line). And if you'll notice CBD Stn in relation to all 3 of St Andrew-Union-King is of uniform walking distance, so no inconvenience to transfer to/from any point.

But you guys are perhaps missing one major function of the DRL, that the downtown doesn't begin and end at the YUS loop and it's those forgotten areas that need mass transit the most. A station at Scott negates another stop eastbound til Sherbourne and at Duncan, not another til Spadina. The gap between Spadina, Univerity, Yonge and Sherbourne is just to broad to have 3 stations be sandwiched so close to eachother when if you spread them out further, whole new customer niches can be catered to. Just look at Google Earth and the number of condos affronting my Entertainment District and St Lawrence Market Stns. People entering the club zone or bound for RioCan/CityTv building would also find this spacing more practical. Likewise George Brown students would be within easy walking distance of a station at Jarvis/Front, and maybe even a PATH link can connect them directly for the winter months.

 

[gweed123]

Or... you could simply build a Wellington-aligned DRL like this:

I think you guys might be overthinking the whole crowd dispersal thing. A transfer station need ever resemble the chaos at B-Y with a platform layout that maximizes space and access points. CBD Stn ergo would have both a very long and broad island platform as well two flanking bay platforms. Making the station box wider naturally encourages people to move down the platform area while awaiting trains, lessening the chance of bottlenecks at any given point with even seating lounges in the non-service areas of the platform. Also arriving trains would open on both sides, segregating offloads from boarding passengers (offloads onto the island, boarders from the bays). The TTC is living proof that duo-stations to dissipate crowding at any one point does not work (see: McCowan-SCC; Ellesmere-Midland; Spadina-St George; Bay-Yonge; University Line in contrast to lower Yonge Line). And if you'll notice CBD Stn in relation to all 3 of St Andrew-Union-King is of uniform walking distance, so no inconvenience to transfer to/from any point.

But you guys are perhaps missing one major function of the DRL, that the downtown doesn't begin and end at the YUS loop and it's those forgotten areas that need mass transit the most. A station at Scott negates another stop eastbound til Sherbourne and at Duncan, not another til Spadina. The gap between Spadina, Univerity, Yonge and Sherbourne is just to broad to have 3 stations be sandwiched so close to eachother when if you spread them out further, whole new customer niches can be catered to. Just look at Google Earth and the number of condos affronting my Entertainment District and St Lawrence Market Stns. People entering the club zone or bound for RioCan/CityTv building would also find this spacing more practical. Likewise George Brown students would be within easy walking distance of a station at Jarvis/Front, and maybe even a PATH link can connect them directly for the winter months.

Your design does definetly have merits. If it were designed like that, it would need at least 3 separate entrances/exits (York, PATH, and Bay), in addition to the fare-paid zone connections to King, Union, and St. Andrew. In short, it would need to be a fairly substantial station, and an even bigger station complex. And naturally, it would need to be deep-boared, as many of those connections would need to go underneath existing underground infrastructure.

And I noticed on the west side of the line you have the Spadina station at Spadina and Wellington. I would be inclined to move it down to Spadina and Front, or even lower. In the SOS Move Toronto plan, all the DRL cost projections and the like are being done from Science Centre to Spadina. One of the main reasons why I stressed this so hard is the change in construction technique that would take place immediately after Spadina.

Everything east of Spadina would need to be boared, while everything west could be cut-and-covered, elevated, or trenched, depending on what is warranted. Regardless, a change in construction techniques will occur, especially if it uses the rail corridor (which it likely will). It just doesn't make much sense to end the line in the CBD, and then have to bring the TBMs back down a decade or so later to tunnel another 1km or so. Ending Phase I of the DRL at Spadina also has the advantage of serving the Rogers Centre, as well as servicing City Place and the Spadina streetcar.

Just some food for thought.

 

[EnviroTO]

A single station in the core means the bulk of passengers on the DRL will be using a single station. Currently the office core is served by 5 stations (Queen, King, Union, St.Andrew, and Osgoode) on the YUS line. The relief presented by a DRL with only a single platform isn't nearly as much relief at all compared to what multiple platforms would provide. I certainly wouldn't want to be on the platform during the evening rush hour for a station which serves virtually all the office buildings on the PATH.

 

[Ervin]

How about just moving the line up to King st, and having it intersect the two existing lines?

 

[EnviroTO]

How about just moving the line up to King st, and having it intersect the two existing lines?

By doing that all the people who want to go to Union Station to catch trains or waterfront streetcars will transfer and ride the Yonge-University line a single station which puts extra passengers on that line that don't need to be and it likely slows down their trip because they will need to walk to the other platform and wait for the connecting subway. For full DRL "relief" three stations serving three entirely different functions (to distribute the load) and which avoids putting extra passengers on the existing line would make more sense. A single centralized stop would mean the full capacity of the DRL is bottlenecked at a single station, and no connection to Union means putting passengers onto a line which is already busy and doesn't need the extra load.

 

[leopetr]

By doing that all the people who want to go to Union Station ... will transfer and ride the Yonge-University line

That's the beauty of having a network in place. People can transfer.

a single station which puts extra passengers on that line that don't need to be

I would argue it makes more sense to relieve the Bloor-King segment, not the King-Union segment. This is best done via much more northerly alingnment than Wellington.

For full DRL "relief" three stations serving three entirely different functions (to distribute the load)

Well, hopefully, if some people are arguing for a single station and some people are arguing for three stations, we'll get the sensible amount -- two. Two would provide a transfer each to the Yonge line and to the University line. The section in the middle is within walking distance of both.

Admittedly, I'm a fan of a Queen or even Dundas alignment, where a third station in the middle would serve little purpose but to slow down the line.

no connection to Union means putting passengers onto a line which is already busy and doesn't need the extra load.

I would argue that Union-bound King-Union and St.Andrew-Union segments are not busy.

Also, a sensible Presto implementation would allow for people to walk from Union to King without paying extra.