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W. K. Lis said:
Main Street Subway/Danforth GO.
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any sort of connection is physically implausible do to the condos and the subway track both being in the way of any usable tunnels. Plus not enough people transfer from the subway to Go Traist from there to make such a project worthwhile for either side even if RER and or Smart track or whatever you want to call it adds extra capacity to it.
 
ssiguy2 said:
Thanks. I had no idea that construction was already well underway.
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As much as I feel Metrolinx has cut important corners on the design with a narrow focus just to build LRT this is good news as doing nothing here is far worse. The actual line itself is still very important and we need to move forward on this local line further down Eglinton East in a reasonable time frame to UTSC. With the current angst on details for the Eglinton West line, we couldn't afford to leave this project vulnerable heading into the election.
 
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TheTigerMaster said:
I assume that they’ve left some details out the drawing. This isn’t an engineering drawing, after all.

However I haven’t been impressed with the temporary lane configurations along the Crosstown route. The temporary lanes are often faded or non existent, and they’ve frequently failed to remove old lane markings.

A few months ago, I saw a collision happen at Avenue and Eglinton. I can hardly blame the drivers involved. There were two conflictaing lane markings on the roadway (one instructing drivers to go straight, and the other telling them to merge into the next lane), and I figured it would only be a matter of time before a crash happened.
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The constant changes to Don Mills/Eglinton have also been a bit chaotic. Lanes seem to shift on a weekly basis, with little to no changes made to the pavement marking or signage. I have already seen two pretty bad accidents in the past few weeks where cars have pretty much hit head on because the lane markings didn't exist.

The middle lanes sometimes seem to lead into the opposing lane from the other direction, or lanes simply end with no warning, forcing last minute lane changes. There was also a few days of the middle lane disappearing mid-intersection, forcing cars to suddenly change lanes illegally and at the last minute, in the middle of the intersection. Absolutely no signage or warning, and impossible to see from afar as the jog in Don Mills now directs you to the right before reaching the intersection. The contractor needs to do better at managing traffic flow. I don't think they are even trying at this point.
 
The detours are horrible, for sure. Especially when compared to the Spadina subway detours, which were clearly painted and signed.
 
Tuscani01 said:
The constant changes to Don Mills/Eglinton have also been a bit chaotic. Lanes seem to shift on a weekly basis, with little to no changes made to the pavement marking or signage. I have already seen two pretty bad accidents in the past few weeks where cars have pretty much hit head on because the lane markings didn't exist.

The middle lanes sometimes seem to lead into the opposing lane from the other direction, or lanes simply end with no warning, forcing last minute lane changes. There was also a few days of the middle lane disappearing mid-intersection, forcing cars to suddenly change lanes illegally and at the last minute, in the middle of the intersection. Absolutely no signage or warning, and impossible to see from afar as the jog in Don Mills now directs you to the right before reaching the intersection. The contractor needs to do better at managing traffic flow. I don't think they are even trying at this point.
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The Station could have gone on the SW corner, along with the bus station. Construction would have been a lot smoother.
 
nfitz said:
With them moving the platform, it will be. If they'd put a walkway over Leslie Street, it would be a simple 150 metre walk to the tunnel from Leslie station to that new office tower to the west (what happened to that anyways, I thought it was all approved years ago, with the approval to remove the knockout in the station as well).
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Canadian Tire was content with their current office and decided not to build their new HQ (at Leslie).
 
So, today was a huge announcement for the REM, bringing it into the realm of reality (construction starts in two months!), and I just want to compare and contrast the two projects. Both have similar costs (Eglinton is $5.3 billion in $2010, $9.1 billion including maintenance, whereas the REM is $6.3 in $2017)
  • But the REM is 67 kilometers, compared to 19 kilometers for the Eglinton LRT.
  • The REM is being built to modern standards (driverless, platform screen doors, entirely grade separated). The Eglinton LRT is missing those features, which any newly built system elsewhere (in Europe or Asia) would have.
  • Whereas the REM is 100% grade separated and will achieve fast top speeds and represents massive time savings. The Eglinton LRT will run on street, stopping midblock and at red lights.
  • The REM will be entirely automated. The Eglinton LRT will cost $80 million/year to operate (in addition to the 30-year $3.8 billion maintenance contract.)
  • The REM represents a big connectivity improvement, linking the Airport, North Shore, South Shore, in routes that had not existed before. The Eglinton LRT is an improvement on an existing bus route, and did not through-route with the SRT at its end or connect to the airport.
  • I cannot find any figures for the daily ridership of the Eglinton LRT, but I am certain it is less than the 167 000 daily riders projected for the REM.
  • The Eglinton LRT has been planned in various forms since the 1960s, with construction having previously been started in the 1990s. It will be in service in 2022. The REM was first conceived about 2 years ago (although it builds off of previous proposals, e.g. for metro Line 3), and will be in service about the same time as the Eglinton LRT (2021-2022).
The REM is what GO-ALRT would have been like. Completely new travel patterns would be possible by public transit, at a fraction of the cost of normal subway development, mostly by leveraging existing ROWs.
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This isn't meant to be a pissing contest, I'm just pointing out that a lot of things about the Eglinton line need a value-for-money comparison. And also take a look at how other projects have been able to rapidly go from conception to construction.
 

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I don't get the point of singling out the Crosstown of all projects. The same points could be made with regard to just about any of our transit proposals

GOALRT and ECLRT serve two completely different trip patterns. One does not negate the other.

REM will be a great addition to the MTL transit network, but it was also rushed and will have more than its share of operational problems, because proper due diligence was not conducted. This project reminds me a lot of the problem with the Canada Line, but REM is worse in a lot of aspects.

RER will largely be serving the function of ALRT when it is operational.

Toronto needs to build infrastructure faster and cheaper, without repeating the mistakes of Canada Line and REM.
 
aquateam said:
So, today was a huge announcement for the REM, bringing it into the realm of reality (construction starts in two months!), and I just want to compare and contrast the two projects. Both have similar costs (Eglinton is $5.3 billion in $2010, $9.1 billion including maintenance, whereas the REM is $6.3 in $2017)
  • But the REM is 67 kilometers, compared to 19 kilometers for the Eglinton LRT.
  • The REM is being built to modern standards (driverless, platform screen doors, entirely grade separated). The Eglinton LRT is missing those features, which any newly built system elsewhere (in Europe or Asia) would have.
  • Whereas the REM is 100% grade separated and will achieve fast top speeds and represents massive time savings. The Eglinton LRT will run on street, stopping midblock and at red lights.
  • The REM will be entirely automated. The Eglinton LRT will cost $80 million/year to operate (in addition to the 30-year $3.8 billion maintenance contract.)
  • The REM represents a big connectivity improvement, linking the Airport, North Shore, South Shore, in routes that had not existed before. The Eglinton LRT is an improvement on an existing bus route, and did not through-route with the SRT at its end or connect to the airport.
  • I cannot find any figures for the daily ridership of the Eglinton LRT, but I am certain it is less than the 167 000 daily riders projected for the REM.
  • The Eglinton LRT has been planned in various forms since the 1960s, with construction having previously been started in the 1990s. It will be in service in 2022. The REM was first conceived about 2 years ago (although it builds off of previous proposals, e.g. for metro Line 3), and will be in service about the same time as the Eglinton LRT (2021-2022).
The REM is what GO-ALRT would have been like. Completely new travel patterns would be possible by public transit, at a fraction of the cost of normal subway development, mostly by leveraging existing ROWs.
View attachment 134415

This isn't meant to be a pissing contest, I'm just pointing out that a lot of things about the Eglinton line need a value-for-money comparison. And also take a look at how other projects have been able to rapidly go from conception to construction.
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There are a couple reasons this is happening much faster for REM than Crosstown.

1. Money. With the investments REM has seen, they certainly got lucky in that regard.

2. Using old rail corridors and tunnels, as well as a bridge that already needed to be built. We had to tunnel for Crosstown, the REM has the advantage of using the Mont Royal tunnel, the Deux-Montagnes line, as well as old railway spurs to the airport and for the saint anne portion (only half of the distance runs on the Autoroute, the other half uses a rail corridor.

Also this is more line GO-ALRT, but also a modern comparison would be GO-RER.
 
aquateam said:
So, today was a huge announcement for the REM, bringing it into the realm of reality (construction starts in two months!), and I just want to compare and contrast the two projects. Both have similar costs (Eglinton is $5.3 billion in $2010, $9.1 billion including maintenance, whereas the REM is $6.3 in $2017)
  • But the REM is 67 kilometers, compared to 19 kilometers for the Eglinton LRT.
  • The REM is being built to modern standards (driverless, platform screen doors, entirely grade separated). The Eglinton LRT is missing those features, which any newly built system elsewhere (in Europe or Asia) would have.
  • Whereas the REM is 100% grade separated and will achieve fast top speeds and represents massive time savings. The Eglinton LRT will run on street, stopping midblock and at red lights.
  • The REM will be entirely automated. The Eglinton LRT will cost $80 million/year to operate (in addition to the 30-year $3.8 billion maintenance contract.)
  • The REM represents a big connectivity improvement, linking the Airport, North Shore, South Shore, in routes that had not existed before. The Eglinton LRT is an improvement on an existing bus route, and did not through-route with the SRT at its end or connect to the airport.
  • I cannot find any figures for the daily ridership of the Eglinton LRT, but I am certain it is less than the 167 000 daily riders projected for the REM.
  • The Eglinton LRT has been planned in various forms since the 1960s, with construction having previously been started in the 1990s. It will be in service in 2022. The REM was first conceived about 2 years ago (although it builds off of previous proposals, e.g. for metro Line 3), and will be in service about the same time as the Eglinton LRT (2021-2022).
The REM is what GO-ALRT would have been like. Completely new travel patterns would be possible by public transit, at a fraction of the cost of normal subway development, mostly by leveraging existing ROWs.
View attachment 134415

This isn't meant to be a pissing contest, I'm just pointing out that a lot of things about the Eglinton line need a value-for-money comparison. And also take a look at how other projects have been able to rapidly go from conception to construction.
Click to expand...

The Eglinton Crosstown is basically a brand spanking new subway line for the city of Toronto; it runs as a subway for a good 3/5s of its length (About the same as the Spadina line prior to the opening of the extension, which should have been aboveground for half its route). Of course it's going to be expensive and will take a lot longer; you're tunneling through midtown Toronto. It should also be noted that maintenance for the line for 30 years accounts for all construction projects/rebuilding efforts associated with the line, vehicle maintenance, tunnel and station cleaning (I believe). Considering that it's costing a fraction of what maintenance will be costing in Waterloo when compared to capital costs, it's not too bad. I am no fan of contracting out (I actually hate that about Metrolinx), but things could have been a lot worse. It's 12.5 km of subway line for about the same amount of money as the Yonge Line north extension, which is about half the length.
 
EastYorkTTCFan said:
any sort of connection is physically implausible do to the condos and the subway track both being in the way of any usable tunnels.
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Physically implausible??

You simply build a tunnel out of the Main Street mezzanine, under Main Street, and to the existing platform.

How is the subway track in the way of anything? I'm not sure which condos you are referring to. The Main Square apartment towers would be east of such a tunnel.

The bigger issue though is the plans to move the existing station further east, making a tunnel even longer. As usual Metrolinx has their head up their assets.
 
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