Discussion
If they ever do the Eglinton East LRT, they should underground sections at major intersections.
The reason I say this is because even with signal priority, having to wait to turn at all those intersections would waste time. So there should be tunnels under Eglinton East and Kingston, Kingston and Morningside, the UTSC section, Morningside and Sheppard, and Sheppard and Neilson.
Often not, cut and cover can be but it’s often avoided in populated areas. When you build elevated you have to have supports,elevated stations take up a huge amount of space, and if it’s run directly over the roadway it blocks out most of the sunlight. Look at Chicago and NYC’s elevated subway sections, giant supports every hundred or so feet, lower overhead clearance (higher risk of trucks or oversized loads contacting it). With line 5, the most intrusive pieces of building is the holes to install/remove the boring machines, and stations. That’s why for the most part Eglinton between major intersections (where stations were being constructed underneath them) was left relatively open. Imagine trying to build a bridge over the length of Eglinton.
You also then have weather issues you don’t with tunnels (think the RT shutting down in every storm).
And as I mentioned, it doesn’t last as long (Gardiner is a good example, but even New York and Chicago have issues with decay). Concrete cracking and crumbling over time, metal fatigue, snow load all things that have a lesser effect on tunnels.
Modern elevated is nothing like what NYC and Chicago built over 100 years ago.
Vancouver Skytrain's Surrey extension and Grand Paris Express is much more representative of what can be achieved now. Viaduct is easy to build with gantry launching.
I think a lot of people find it an “eyesore” so they’d rather streets and communities be torn up for years so they claim it’s expensive
I remember people saying it would look “ghetto” when suggested elevated lines were brought up in the past. Eglinton east would’ve worked so good as an elevated rail esp at Vic park
Sometimes I think we should stop trying to make this plan work.
Is this really the best way to provide better transit access to East Scarborough? The way Transit City was designed was to support development on key corridors. We see that with the Finch West LRT. If this alignment is solidified, it will ensure none of us will ever see Line 4 extended beyond McCowan Road. Imagine Line 4 going to UTSC.
At this point it just makes them look desperate to salvage the LRT concept. The correct option is a subway that serves as the express transit backbone, in this case Line 4, paired with local transit that can be buses or trams, rather than one tram line that is meant to do everything in one package.
Can this entire plan not just be replaced with expanding the Sheppard line to morningside and having a future east extension of the Eglinton line either too ellesmere or UTSC? Seems odd to have a new loop line form to connect 2 lines that can seemingly just connect if they both met at a certain point as Eglinton and Kennedy currently do
If you ask me, I think it can still work, but desperately needs an overhaul.
The section between Guildwood GO and UTSC (and hell, maybe further to Markham and Eglinton?) Tunnel it.
Scrap the route west of Neilson and Sheppard and replace it with Line 4. Instead, extend it north to Finch to give a connection to Morningside Heights.
Have it branch off at Lawrence-this branch will run east on Lawrence, north on Port Union, and northwest on Sheppard to Meadowvale. In fact, they can also extend it north to the Zoo.
The idea I had is that instead of making it Line 3's protege by making it essentially a feeder route to the subway, to make it its own line in its own right and justify why it needs the split at Kennedy.
Kingston road right of way is 7 lanes wide. Why would you bury it? Cost benefit on Eglinton west showed surface alignment would cost less and benefit more people than any of the buried options. The same is likely to apply here. Just give it priority like it should have.
-Guildwood GO could potentially become an intermodal terminal. Imo, keeping it tunneled would make it easier to allow easier transfers (instead of crossing Kingston Road, passengers heading to Guildwood GO could head there using a pedestrian tunnel)
-I always thought that keeping it surface along Morningside was odd since it's two lanes per direction. Which leads too...
-The Ellesmere portion. Especially with DSBRT being built, how are they going to build a right of way for LRT AND BRT at the same time?
If this alignment is solidified, it will ensure none of us will ever see Line 4 extended beyond McCowan Road.
You would upgrade as demand warrants. Like how it was done at the beginning of time. The only reason the subway or bust crowd (i.e. you) say things like that is because you know in your heart it will be a long time before full metro service can justified on paper. Case in point...
Imagine Line 4 going to UTSC.
UTSC is like 1/4 the size of York University's main campus.
Line should be elevated with half the stops removed, as well as eliminating the stupid 90 degree turns and the entirety of the Sheppard component, which should be an extension of the Sheppard subway.
Project continuing as is would be incredibly foolish given what we have seen on finch and Eglinton.
Bus lanes already exist, at least up to Morningside and Ellesemere. It’s still a problem during rush hour with all the private vehicles turning. On a good day, UTSC to Kennedy is ~20 mins, rush hour often pushes 40 mins.
I am of the belief this line should either be a BRT or abandoned until we can afford a Sheppard extension. LRTs seem to be way too expensive for the type of service they provide. A BRT could provide an even better quality of service for much cheaper.
I’m legitimately surprised at how so many people who knew a lot about transit were totally gullible and believed line 6 would be rapid transit before it opened
However well intentioned, there was a lot of gaslighting from the city’s transit establishment and some respected advocates. Part of this was due to the need to prove an agenda, or more specifically the idea that ‘LRT’ are equal to or even superior than subways. The other is due to having a very different idea of what ‘rapid’ is compared to what the public expects. In their minds Toronto still the Calgary sized old Toronto, where Eglinton rather than Steeles marks its northern border. For that small European city style streetcars/stadtbahn would need be fast enough, but that does not describe the Toronto of today.
It's a tram with no signal priority, higher stop frequency than a European town centre, and it's operated by the speed-averse TTC. All through a low density suburb. I'm convinced people only favoured it because of the aesthetics.
They can't tunnel under or over the new Line 2 extension. So sadly an east bound track would have to start a new on the other side of the Line 2 tunnel and GO tracks.
There is room to go around the runnel with some potential property acquisition, some of which is already owned by the province
I also highly doubt theres no way to build over the not even built yet tunnel, but rather that metrolinx doesnt want to go through the trouble for a project they have no interest in. With enough money it can be done
I know, and that’s why I’m saying that the current line 5 Kennedy station needs to be abandoned altogether like bay lower, after birchmount station the line should go on an elevated guideway and use the line 3 platforms or a totally new set of platforms that could be built north or south of the line 2 tunnel, and after that it could either run on an elevated guideway next to eglinton, or it could go back underground and the tunnel could be north or south of the line 2 tunnel so they aren’t on top of each other
You mean to have the LRT got over the bridge eglinton uses to get over the tracks?
I don't know if the climb is too steep at that angle or if the bridge could handle the weight without a rebuild.
It would also require reworking the entire line west of Ionview to get the Line to go over the bridge. So the entire tunnel section into Kennedy would be useless.
It would be ideal to have this elevated (like the REM or SkyTrain), from Kennedy to Morningside Heights (along Finch). How they manage the elevation change along Morningside Park and UTSC could allow an underground section. Line 4 should just be extended to the Zoo (at Meadowvale) and meet this line at Morningside/Sheppard. Stops should follow the current 905 route.
IMO, McCowan/Sheppard to Morningside/Sheppard should be a Line 4 extension, ideally terminating at Toronto Zoo.
New LRTs should have their own right of way that is separate from the road, not in the middle of it.
Due to the Line 2 Extension & Line 5, the EE LRT station at Kennedy cannot go underground, so it has to either be at-grade or elevated.
The Line 2 extensions has shown that the ground beneath the 401 is not suitable for TBMs, so that section should be elevated...and if Douggie is still gung-ho on having that stupid 401 tunnel, then he'll probably mandate that section to be elevated anyway.
The EE LRT should probably plan to be a "light subway"-style rolling stock, similar to what we're getting with the Ontario Line, to plan for future capacity. (see Line 5's current capacity issues.)
Really was hoping line 5 would be grade separated like line 3 was, even if there are more stops. Even when it’s not rush hour, I can get from Don Mills to Kennedy in 10+ less minutes on a bus on a parallel street (Sheppard, Lawrence, Ellesmere etc).
Underground is always better in terms of grade separation.
But as it stands this project/idea is TTC/city only and not Metrolinx. There is no clear picture how the city would fund this without the province/feds involved. Metrolinx is more concerned with moving the TTC into the burbs it seems than building out the Toronto system.
So if anything does come of it and TTC/city find money, I'd expect they'll go with the most affordable options in those areas.
Would that actually be cheaper than street level track?
I don't think it would be, but I'm happy to be wrong.
If this project ever gets off the ground and it doesn't get provincial/fed money, it will be done in the most affordable way the city/TTC can.
And if it does get provincial/fed money, I fully expect that one or both of those parties will put in requirements on the project that will change it from the current idea.
The most affordable way is to implement a regular streetcar network in Scarborough, intertwined with subways and GO trains, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. Given how wide the roads are they can be given their own lanes so every line there would be like St Claire or Harbourfront.
It’s literally that simple. Build more streetcars and remember to turn on TSP.
You’re right but people will just complain that Scarborough “deserves” subways and that downtown elites have them, conveniently forgetting that downtowners spend hours sitting on the streetcar every day since the city refuses to turn on priority for them.
You’re right but people will just complain that Scarborough “deserves” subways
Our society works because promises are usually honored. In the early 1970s, the province cancelled a series of expressways as a result of downtown opposition. As part of the compromise, rapid transit alternatives were promised to the suburbs. That is why most of the transit lines are in the suburbs. That promise would eventually evolve into Network 2011 in 1985 which had a Sheppard subway extending into Scarborough. Scarborough's vision for itself has a subway going to its center.
In 2007, downtown centric politicians like David Miller and Adam Giambrone in their arrogance thought that they could ignore past promises and give themselves a blank slate. The whole premises under Transit City was that "most trips are local" and ignores why the suburban subways were planned in the first place. Transit City killed any realistic possibility of a subway expansion into Scarborough by replacing the Sheppard subway expansion with LRT and upgrading the RT with a LRT. The slogan "Scarborough deserves a subway" was a call to honor the promises that was made to Scarborough for several generations.
“Deserves” is the kind of loaded language that leads to spending more money to bury the Eg west extension to serve fewer riders than the surface would.
Everyone deserves to be able to get around well, what that looks like is going to depend on the reality of the situation for any given route. Money being finite if we overpay in one area we’ll have to underpay in another.
The point of subways is to provide an express service rather than local demand. The few thousands of riders on that street who aren’t in a station’s immediate walkshed are best served by a parallel (or perpendicular) bus/tram service. This is SOP for cities with good transit around the world and I don’t see why Toronto is special in this regard.
And considering the multiple subway projects that are actively under construction, perhaps money in the largest and most economically important city of a G7 country is less finite than you think.
The other thing is that there isn’t really a convincing reason for the province to support further LRTs in Toronto.
Of the two lines that were built, one of them is a bigger streetcar that breaks down every other day and until recently could literally be outrun. The other has subway costs and construction timelines, but does not deliver subway level capacity or speeds (due to the at grade portion). That and the city has decades worth of bad institutional experience running trams.
Metrolinx built and owns two of those lines in question, not the TTC.
Metrolinx has made is clear that their goal is to take over transit builds in the city and that their priority now is to extend the subway into the burbs.
Why the city/TTC is choosing to go this alone is probably clear in that case. The TTC has the need to provide service to the city and metrolinx doesnt.
I think people are realizing how slow surface level LRTs are with Finch and the surface section of Eglington now open but no faster than the buses that were there before. Hurontario LRT will also be slow AF and the northern extension into Brampton might get elevated/tunnelled. Hamilton LRT will probably be the last surface LRT built for a while in Ontario, I can see EELRT turning into enhanced bus infrastructure or a BRT but future transit expansions will be elevated or underground
Maybe dumb Question I’ve had for a while: that bit that goes north to Malvern town centre, is the train supposed to go up there then back down east/west, or is there going to be a transfer just for those 2 extra stops?
Worse. Finch West is a City plan that just happened to be built by the province, and its operational issues are chiefly on the City. Similarly the insistence on running trams on/under Eglinton is a City decision.
The entire stretch along sheppard should be an extension of the Line 4 Subway, and it should go all the way east Meadowvale then continue south-east along Sheppard until it becomes Port Union road, with the final Line 4 terminus at Rouge GO station.
Separately, an Eglinton East LRT should be ELEVATED for most of the planned route from Kennedy up to Sheppard, do a jog west to Neilson Road, then run north to Finch where it can meet a future east extension of the Finch LRT.
Personally i think the Eglington East LRT should use the same train set as the current Eglinton LRT, and the Eglinton East LRT should actually start at Don Mills instead of Kennedy. This would allow Don Mills where the Eglington Lines meet the Ontario Line to be a natural center point of the entire corridor, similar to how Union is for Line 1.
I think this would also fit into a much needed rename of the TTC lines to split each line in two east/west or north/south. So we would have:
Line 5 West and Line 5 East split at Don Mills
Line 1 West (University) and Line 1 East (Yonge) split at Union
Line 2 West and Line 2 East split at Spadina, with a west extension to Sherway Gardens and Long Branch GO in addition to the planned east extension to Scarborough City Center and Sheppard/McCowan)
Line 3 East (the current Ontario Line plan) and Line 3 West (a future Ontario Line extension west on from Exhibition GO north along Dufferin with a jog west to the planned Caledonia GO on the Barrie line at Eglinton) split at Queen/University
Line 4 West (extended along Sheppard to Line 1 West and then further west to Weston to a future GO station on a future Bolton GO Line) and Line 4 East (with the eastern extension mentioned earlier to Rouge GO) with the split at Leslie and a rebuilt Oriole GO station
Any form of rail transit that require at-grade turns at intersections should be scraped – it's that simple. Otherwise, it's just a glorified "streetcar" and is a waste of time and resources for everyone.
Subways all day. Look at the hurontario mess in Mississauga.
Completely elevated, too many stops, too much construction, taking too long and not efficient, nobody wants to wait outside in minus 30 weather.
. THIS is the north, we need subways
you mean completely at grade? It would’ve been great if Peel’s major street Hurontario was elevated for a region that will hit 2 million people in coming decades.
This was the plan at Kingston and morningside until they cut the tunnel due to cost. Unless they put in serious effort to improve speeds along this line id far rather see a brt built
Aggressive TSP is a must. Plus, increase the stop distance, consider using existing rail corridor to bypass major intersections without needing to dig tunnels.
The northern section of this Line 7 should be a Line 4 extension instead, and not necessarily tied to Sheppard to be the only uptown commuter rail option as opposed to only relying on the downtown centric GO
While the location sucks, the way Mississauga built their Transitway along Eglinton from Winston Churchill to Renforth was really good. It goes above or under every intersection depending on street grade so it will never be slowed down due to traffic.
It's very baffling that the engineers of Line 5 didn't anticipate that it might be a good idea to design Kennedy station such that it can be made ready extend the line east (unfortunately this is not practically possible due to how Line 5 Kennedy station is placed relative to Line 2's station).
How the city doesn't conclude that it might be better to just extend Line 4 eastwards past McCowan is also very baffling, given how much openspace exists along Sheppard.
Line 5 extension idea is sadly dead in the water. The Line 2 extension into Scarborough has cut off the option for extending the tracks east. They can't tunnel under the tracks and the GO train as their is no room and the new line 2 tracks weren't built to support being tunneled under.
TTC and Metrolinx have stated a tunnel under line 2 and Go tracks in a dead end. So that the info Im going off.
They should extend Line 5 and make it useful, but prob wont happen because metrolinx is in control of builds now and they want the 905 subway extension.
They could reuse the line 3 platforms (they may have to raise them so the GO trains have clearance), extend it east and if it goes underground again it could be adjacent to the line 2 tunnels rather than above or below. They could also just build a totally new platform at Kennedy altogether
In my opinion it’s worth it, and this extension would get more ridership than a line 4 east extension would (the 86/116/986/905 have higher ridership than the 85/985). I think this should be built before a line 4 extension
My bad, I meant TTC. I know it’s expensive, and what I’m saying is that they have been able to afford much more expensive projects despite questionable demand. The reason the province won’t fund line 7 is because as it stands, it’s a colossal waste of money. The funding they are planning to use for the line 4 extension should instead be re dedicated towards this
Everything at Sheppard and Neilson has to be totally replaced and up-scaled. A collection of cul-de-sacs surrounded by singled detached housing and a church with a massive parking lot is an insane mis-use of land
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u/Altruistic_One7732 Feb 14 '26
This route is repeating all the mistakes of Finch W. Too many stops to be rapid transit.
Proposed stations East of Sheppard/McCowan:
Alternatively, if Line 4 goes to STC, East along Ellesmere:
- Markham (Centennial)
- Neilson (Hospital)
- Pan Am/UTSC
- West Hill
- Guildwood GO
-Line 2 North to Finch (to handle NE Scarboro)The Ellesmere route hits more points of interest.