My TTC Subway Plans

[mr. x]

kirk:

most of the remaining railway lines are in use - the one that runs behind summerhill still carries freight, and the railways can be difficult to deal with. the old belt line was abandoned, and that took years for the city to acquire it.

other lines might be wide enough to fit in transit alongside - as the scarborough ldt runs beside the tracks that run east of kennedy.

aprt from railway lines, hydro corridors are a good bet. unfortunately, some of these have been sold off for redevelopment (scarborough near sheppard and warden for example. these should be protected.

a word of caution - just becuase there is a corridor doesn't make it a good choice - the allen/spadina subway line has been criticised on this basis - ridership has always been low - it was driven by the low cost of building the line there, rather than by demand.

 

[james t kirk]

kirk:

most of the remaining railway lines are in use - the one that runs behind summerhill still carries freight, and the railways can be difficult to deal with. the old belt line was abandoned, and that took years for the city to acquire it.

The railways are VERY difficult to deal with. The problem is that the City would like the corridor access for next to nothing, or better yet nothing, and the railways demand a king's fortune.

The railways also don't want the grief of having to deal with public transit.

The North Toronto Sub (CPR behind summerhill) is extremely busy since it is CPR's main line from Toronto to Montreal.

But there is room for five (5) tracks and currently there are only two.

The old Ontario / Quebec Railway corridor is completely abandoned and parallels CPR. (CPR owns it having bought it out way back when in some scam of a deal where they were the majority share holder in the line and they leased it to CPR for 999 years for a song screwing the minority shareholders completely.

http://www.railwaybob.com/Overview/OverviewPage3.htm

 

[antaeus]

Previous Employment.
UTDC (Urban Transportation Development Corp, light and heavy rail), TTC( planning and development), Orion (transit bus manuf.) MCI (coach manuf.) Eagle Coach (Bus Manuf) and TSI (TransitSystemsInc).
Public Transit is about to undergo a massive change. Any large scale purchase or plan at this point would be a waste of time and huge amounts of money. It would become obsolete before it was completed. Alternate feuls combined with extensive use of carbon fibre has opened the door to new thinking. Say good bye to 38,000lb deisel busses. Construction technology has leaped forward in the past 5 years. Underground subways are about to become obsolete. Above ground Ultra Light Rail Transit ULRT is what is coming. Because the GTA is bounded by water on one side a five spoke hub system is needed. Using transit has to take less time than driving to make it work. the new prototypes being tested today have managed to cut manufacturing costs by 35%, reduced vehical weight by 50% and lowered the operating (large part fuel) cost by 50%. All were going to see is patchwork done for the next few years and that includes, A Regional Transit Authority with better interconnected scheduling. It's happened in Vaughn and will soon cover TTC, Vaughn, Mississauga, Brampton, oakville etc. More refurbishing of current vehicals and more bus lanes.

Most of this is absolute gold, an informed, realistic statement.

New underground transit construction has become phenomenally expensive and with current municipal funding models it is unlikely a new subway line will ever be built in Canada, regardless of consensus or population. The money required is just too expensive. Probably the last one in North America is the massive Boston project.

The only remaining transit solution is as Hugger describes: multiple solutions. But more has to be done as well. A paradigm shift in working hours in large metropolis' is required - lessen the impact of rush hour by shifting or flexible start/finish times as much as possible. Ideally, transit authority should flood the streets with buses, streetcars, trains and actually enforce dedicated lanes.

I think the conception that transit has to be faster than the car to be viable is false. It just has to be very, very convenient, mainly meaning available. I've never heard any transit planners or municipal officials discuss this.

 

[Fork Master]

Thanks! everyone for your replies, your comments have been excellent, even the criticisms have been awesome too or maybe especially the criticisms lol

I've altered my plan a little, http://www.beerhockeysex.com/Images/My_TTC_Subway_Plans.gif , based on some of the feedback, I've also kept the old plans listed on the site for reference. If anyone else wants to make a plan using mspaint, I'll gladly add it to the list.

 

[mr. x]

fork:

if you are going to put in a queen stret line, you need to bend up the ends so that it provides an alternative route downtown - maybe woodbine and dufferin, or maybe on just the one side up jarvis or parliament.

i suggest you abandon subways, and so a scheme which uses light rail - have a light rail line running along the waterfront all the way to woodbine, and lines throughout the suburbs