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Sudden momentum for the Downtown Relief Line
| quote: | Original posted @ http://network.nationalpost.com/np/...elief-line.aspx
Sudden momentum for the Downtown Relief Line
Posted: January 30, 2009, 8:16 PM by Rob Roberts
TTC
By Allison Hanes, National Post
It’s a 20-year-old idea with a utilitarian name, but in the space of a week the so-called Downtown Relief Line has suddenly recaptured the public imagination and catapulted itself into the realm of possibility.
Momentum is building behind a brand new U-shaped subway line to whisk riders into the downtown core from the east and west of the Bloor-Danforth line, linking some of Toronto’s prime neighbourhoods like a string of pearls and providing new avenues into the core from well beyond its trajectory.
It could also cure serious headaches for transit planners and commuters by alleviating pressure on the jammed Yonge subway line and avoid a long, costly, disruptive reno of bursting Yonge-Bloor Station if the subway line is pushed north to York Region.
Councillor Michael Thompson (Scarborough Centre) jump-started the discussion this week at city council with a pair of motions on fast-tracking the DRL, which he said may be the project Torontonians have been craving to inject a new shot of vitality into the city.
A groundswell of popular support will be “absolutely crucial,” he said, to make the DRL a reality.
“If I can say this so bluntly: if there is ever a time that Torontonians needed to be called to action, to rally around a point of mutual benefit… this is that point,” said Mr. Thompson, who emphasized the DRL is not meant to replace the $8-billion light rail network, Transit City. “Politicians who are willing to listen will need to be convinced that this is something the people want and not just what Michael Thompson wants.”
The buzz started almost as soon as city council, in a surprise last-minute decision, incorporated suggestions about the DRL from Mr. Thompson and Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, into a slew of conditions on Toronto’s participation in provincial plans to extend the Yonge line north to Richmond Hill.
In the blogosphere, transit enthusiasts have been tossing around everything from possible routes to more interesting names, like the Downtown Loop.
A Facebook group dedicated to the DRL lit up. It already has a logo with a rough tracing of the new line in red entwined with the yellow and green of the existing network.
As Mr. Minnan-Wong (Don Valley East) quipped: “You can’t light a fire without a spark.”
It has never been a question of if the Downtown Relief Line would be built, but when, said TTC chair Adam Giambrone.
As it was conceived in the 1980s, the DRL would start at Pape in the east, travel south through Riverdale and Leslieville before hopping the Don River, picking up passengers in Corktown and the Distillery, and St. Lawrence Market, then enter the downtown core along Wellington, King, Adelaide, Richmond or Queen streets. From downtown, it would wind its way to the Exhibition, Liberty Village and up Dufferin Street or beyond.
It is estimated the DRL could move 18,000 passengers an hour.
The route is not set in stone, Mr. Giambrone said, and new studies must be done to plot a 21st century map for the line.
“A lot has changed in Toronto in 20 years,” said this week. “In the study 20 years ago, there’s about eight or nine different routings. Do you go up Roncesvalles, do you go up the rail corridor? Do you even go to the west or do you stop it?
‘‘Is Pape Avenue the best street; there’s [a possible second] alignment along Donlands. Do you connect in with the Greenwood yards? You don’t just make some of these decisions without making a real detailed study.”
The fact that Messrs. Thompson and Minnan-Wong, fiscally conservative councillors from suburban wards, were championing a reconsideration of the DRL speaks to its broad appeal.
A handful of executive committee members climbed aboard, including Councillors Shelley Carroll (Don Valley West), who is also the city budget chief, Paula Fletcher (Toronto Danforth), Kyle Rae (Toronto Centre Rosedale) and Pam McConnell (Toronto Centre Rosedale).
“If we keep funnelling more people into the system, it will stop working for people who live downtown,” said Ms. McConnell.
“That’s why it is essential for a relief line to be in place before we expand into York Region. It is also important that Toronto taxpayers are not funding the operation of a system that York Region can enjoy while Torontonians are left standing at the station.”
But how realistic is it – given that Metrolinx, the transit agency for the GTA, cast the DRL to a 25-year horizon when it adopted its blueprint for greater Toronto and Hamilton in November?
Even among those who voted to fast-track the DRL, there is doubt.
Councillor Adam Vaughan (Trinity Spadina) believes in putting subways where population density already exists. But he splashed cold-hard skepticism over the likelihood of subways stations on Queen Street West in the near future – even if optimistic planners left a legacy of buildings able to withstand underground vibrations starting half a century ago.
Mr. Vaughan pointed out that the levels of government who would have to fund a new subway are the same ones who came up with “mind-boggling” plans like extending the Yonge line to the ’burbs in the first place, and rapid transit to Peterborough.
Councillor Norm Kelly (Scarborough Agincourt), a Metrolinx board member, said “the door is closed” to pushing the DRL at the 11th hour.
But Michael Fenn, CEO of Metrolinx, suggested yesterday it may still be open, if only a crack.
The regional transportation plan is a “living document” that the board has the power to amend, he said, adding any consideration of the DRL would likely occur while figuring out how to take pressure off the already overcrowded Yonge line.
“I think we need to do this one step at a time,” said Mr. Fenn. “We need to know what the capacity limitations might conceivably be and … what capacity might be created in the existing system, what role GO Transit might play and other system improvements before we start looking at grander considerations.”
The Downtown Relief Line’s fate may indeed be wrapped up in expansion of the Yonge line, as unpopular an idea as that is at Toronto City Hall.
The city wants assurances that packed trains full of York residents don’t overwhelm Toronto residents on their own subway platforms, and the potential solutions, including a third platform at Yonge-Bloor Station, would be expensive and disruptive.
Toronto is now banking that the DLR will pose an attractive alternative.
“It may make sense to actually begin the Downtown Relief Line earlier than expected to deal with the capacity issues” said Mr. Giambrone, “especially if you find the cost of dealing with capacity issues on the Yonge line to be over a billion dollars and the cost of the Downtown Relief Line to be $2.1-billion.” |
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