Downtown Relief Line (part 5)

Final thoughts:
-King is a better choice for a subway, from Shaw to the Don River
-Greenwood is a decent choice for an east-end transfer, and might help connect to the Greenwood Yard
-The rail corridor is a cost-effective option in the west end
-Dundas West station is a natural transfer point in the west
-Use a curved route and keep the number of stations down to make the route efficient and cost-effective
-A couple of my east end stations (see Part 3) would probably not be cost-effective, so I removed them
-The first stages would be to build south of Bloor/Danforth, on the east side and then the west
-Building northward to Eglinton would not be as beneficial until the Eglinton Crosstown LRT is built
-In the east, the line could continue to Don Mills, possibly as light rail
-In the west, the line could follow Weston Road, at least until Lawrence
-Hopefully this would take a lot of pressure off the Yonge, Bloor, and Danforth lines

Map! (click for large version)

Stations, from northwest:
Mount Dennis
Earlscourt
Dundas West
Parkdale (Queen/Dufferin)
Shaw (at King)
Niagara (King at Bathurst)
Spadina South (at King)
St. Andrew
King
Jarvis
Parliament
Athletes Village (around Eastern at St. Lawrence)
Queen East (at Broadview)
Gerrard (at Jones)
Greenwood
Cosburn (at Donlands)
Thorncliffe Park (or “East York Centre”)
Flemingdon Park (Don Mills at Eglinton)

Downtown Relief Line (part 4)

This Thought will look at the West end of a potential Downtown Relief Line.

But first: I was thinking about the Greenwood plan from part 3, and while I still support the benefits of a transfer at Greenwood, my idea for a stop at Greenwood and Cosburn was shaken a little when I biked past that intersection and found it to be amongst a scattering of bungalows, with nowhere near what is necessary to support a station. A potential solution to this: from Greenwood/Danforth, continue southwest like my original idea. But the line would then curve northwest, maybe to Donlands and Cosburn, which is a busier area and closer to apartments on Cosburn, and still fairly central in the East York area. The subway line could go underneath Greenwood station, and curving northwest might actually help connect it to the Greenwood subway yard (which is west of Greenwood Ave… remember that Greenwood station is actually a block east of there).

Okay, the west end! We left off at Niagara Station (King at Bathurst). Like I mentioned earlier, King is better than Queen, because it passes through high-density neighbourhoods. West of Bathurst, then, I would place a stop at Shaw St (2nd exit: Crawford St), to get the middle of a cluster of buildings, and also to connect to the Ossington bus.

West of there, there is some debate over the best choice. If it is possible to continue along the rail corridor, then it would save a lot of money to do so, and not serve much less than if the line had stops at King and Dufferin, and King and Jameson.
The rail corridor plan is better not just because it would be cheaper to build, but having fewer stops would be more economically efficient, and also provide a faster trip.
Continuing along King would better serve the area (after stops at Dufferin and Jameson, others might be at Roncesvalles and King, and Roncesvalles and Howard Park) but would be slower and more expensive.

I would advocate the rail corridor if possible. After stopping at Queen and Dufferin, there might be a possibility for one more stop before Dundas West Station. The rail corridor is a good continuation north of Bloor. Stops at St. Clair and Eglinton are obvious for their east-west connections, even if they don’t have supporting density. To fill in the holes (if worthwhile), Dupont/Annette would be a good midpoint between Bloor and St. Clair, and Rogers Road between St. Clair and Eglinton. Both these streets have bus connections.

It is probably less worthwhile to have these extra stops than it would be in the Thorncliffe and Flemingdon neighbourhoods, because a bus connection seems less important than providing excellent transit service to high-density areas. They haven’t even built stations between major avenues on Yonge Street, so how could an Annette or Rogers station be justified?

Stations in the west end, continuing from the east:
Shaw (at King)
Parkdale (Queen/Dufferin)
Dundas West
Earlscourt (St. Clair)
Mount Dennis (Eglinton)

Movie Previews

I saw Alice in Wonderland recently, and when the first preview was an obvious kids movie, I wondered, will they play kids/family movie trailers first, and then go from there into movies that will have less appeal for kids? I thought this would be smart, because then if kids decide to play the nagging game: “That looks so cool! Can we see it? I wanna see it! Mommmmyyyy!!”, by the time the movie itself starts, they’ll either have been shushed into being quiet, or at their vocal chords would completely give out. And everyone could enjoy the movie.

But they ruined it for me by playing ALL previews for kids/family movies. Seriously, a Toy Story 3? That’s weak.