BurlOak
Senior Member
View attachment 18466
Not so much a fantasy map as a relatively inexpensive alternative to the current system which could prove to lower some of the current strain on the Yonge-University-Spadina line, by interlining the system (as has been tested previously) and splitting it into four lines one could control for the problems faced with different levels at Bay Station, the realignment would need about a kilometer of new track reconnecting Lower an Upper Bay stations in new ways, the alignment depicted allows all North-South trains to be on the lower level at all time, and all East-West trains to use Upper Bay exclusively. With some re-signing downtown and the addition of an automated announcement system, along with the new signalling system being installed in a few weeks, one could reasonably expect to have a train going almost anywhere in the city with a minimum head way of two minutes, or 30 seconds between each train (headway for trains on the YUS line after this October's shutdown).
This system could not serve to replace the idea of a Downtown Relief line, but it could reduce some of the strain on the current system and buy the city some time to build the a new line. I welcome any criticism to the map or the idea, I'd like to see this actually go somewhere, and I'm hoping its' relative simplicity and low cost make it attractive. It would also be possible to examine the idea of adding a Cross-Bloor express train that does not do the entire loop and runs the current Bloor-Danforth line in peak periods, allowing those crossing downtown to bypass it and avoid a transfer.
Contra Wizard. -First time poster, long time reader.
Edit: Sorry my pain skills suck.
Edit 2: Large Image at: http://i.imgur.com/fSRuwKR.gif
If I understand this correctly, trains will be come every 30 seconds on the downtown portion of the Yonge and University Line (i.e. Queen or Osgoode Station). One train goes north to Finch, one goes east to Kennedy, one goes North to Downsview and one goes West to Kipling. If you cross to the other platform, there would also be a train going to each of the 4 termini (Finch, Kennedy, Downsview, Kipling), but it would go the long way around the loop through Union Station.
This means it is a 2 minute wait, maximum, to get a train going to your destination. It may even be a one minute wait if you are willing to go the long way around through Union. I guess it also means that outside of the downtown loop, the train frequency (i.e. at Jane, Yordale, York Mills and Victoria Park) would be 60 seconds (in each direction).
The 30 seconds seems unrealistically low to me. Currently, I think we are above 2 minutes and are hoping to get down to 100 seconds with the new signalling. This proposal may allow higher frequency since the dwell time at each station would be reduced since there would be much fewer transfering riders at interchange stations (there would still be transfers at +/- Bay for passengers who want to continue along Bloor) and fewer riders at each typically station since the frequency is lower. However, that being said, 30 seconds seems exceedingly low and I would think that the value of 90 seconds suggested by Gweed123 is a more reasonable value. If I use an 75 second value for train frequency in the downtown loop, then outside of the downtown loop (i.e. at Jane, Yordale, York Mills and Victoria Park), the the train frequency would be 150 seconds (2'30" in each direction) - about 15% worse than currently exists and about 40% worse than what TTC hopes to achieve with the new signals.