here is my revised DRL routing, with stations this time!
I would like it do come down don mills, across overlea, down pape, across wellington, make the jump up to king in the st. Lawrence district, drop down to front past spadina, (so that it reaches GO's future transit centre at bathurst and front) down to exhibition/liberty village, up along the rail corridor to roncesvalle ave, and up to dundas west station.
phase one would be "peter" station to eglinton, or "science centre". propably in the 4-5 billion range for construction (hopefully largely federal funding). phase 2 would be "science centre" to "Don mills". probably around 1.5 billion to 2 billion (largely municipal funding through transit taxes). and phase 3 would be "peter" to "dundas west". probably around $2 billion. (provincial/federal/municipal funding, as it would largely be built to allow for "bathurst central" station for GO's transit centre.)
Nice map.
I have a few thoughts, which may move this closer to others I have seen.
1. I have seen Flemingdon Park as a stop on most maps - I think it is worthwhile.
2. O'Conner is a bit far North since it much of its catchment area is the Don Valley. I think Cosburn or Mortimer would be better.
3. Riverdale seems a bit easier to build than a Gerrard would be (Gerrard is sort of in a curve and under railway tracks). Generally, I would prefer to intercept Gerrard since it is a more major road (crosses DVP) - but probably depends on cost.
4. I would not be opposed to adding an extra station between Donlands and Yonge - Depending on whether the Donlands is closer to DVP or Cherry.
5. I do not think it is worth switching up to King Street. The King Station is mostly south of King St. so the transfer is not much of a walk at all - It is a bit longer at St. Andrew. It may be easier to build the interchange stations a bit offset from each other instead of directly on top of each other. Wellington is a straight (smooth) continuation of Front and it seems a shame not to continue on it. (One way I would leave Wellington would be if GO wanted to tunnel under here for a new Union North Station - which I do not believe is on anyones radar). The single interchange "Financial" station from DRLNow appears too ambitous to expect a single station to serve 3 YUS stations.
6. Switching to Wellington would allow an easier time cutting down on the diagonal from Peter/Wellington to Front/Spadina. With the station closer to (just West of)Spadina, it better serves the SkyDome and City Place.
7. I am not sure if Roncesvalles is a better option to curve north than Dufferin. At Dufferin you could intercept Queen/King with one station and Dundas/College with another. By way of the Spadina (or Bathurst) station and the Exhibition station, you have already hit both GO lines so I am not sure you have to hit Dundas West GO - I think Metrolinx really wants connections to GO to get some people off the trains prior to Union. Anything beyond Exhibition depends on whether GO can effectively run some type of all day service and what becomes of the 15 minute express train from YYZ.
I do not think you have to reduce the number of stations to increase the speed of the line. People will only transfer onto the DRL from B-D if the DRL comes close to their destination. No-one will tranfer back onto YUS - they will stay on D-B and make only one transfer. No matter what, the DRL will have fewer stations than the D-B and YUS combination, but no matter how much fewer, people will not make the double transfer. If the reason for reduced stations is reduced cost - that I could accept, but it still needs to be convenient.
After reflecting on this a bit, I am not sure which alignmnet is best to get back up to Bloor in the West. In reality, this would be a second or third phase of the DRL so I might just have short tail tracks at Exhibition and keep the options open on the future alginment until we see how things look in 10 or 20 years.
