Quote:
Originally Posted by Mille Sabords
Richard, aside from the technical and environmental reasons that other people have raised about your underwater station, my objection is simply that it increases pedestrian effort for people who are now served by two stations. Here we are whining about the fact that downtown will only have three stations, and we want to combine another two? Why, aside from it being "neat" to have an underwater station?
Lees station needs to be there. Not an annoying 250 metre walk away, THERE. Ten seconds away and down the stairs, pronto into the train.
Hurdman is a mess already. For people who live in the Riviera condos, or the enclave of townhouses or the apartment buildings on old Riverside, getting to Hurdman Station on foot is a real pain. There is an intersection of three streams of buses converging at the very location where you're supposed to cross, on foot, to get to the station. That can already be a challenge for the able-bodied (especially when you see your bus pulling up to the station and you really have to catch it, and some asshole driver decided he got there before you and almost runs you over).
Plus, Hurdman is enough of a wasteland. Asking people to walk through all that wasteland to get to an underwater station, for the thrill of seeing little fishies... I'm sorry, man. People have lives to live.
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Points taken.
I was actually trying to get rid of a station on the route to Downtown in hopes that it would speed the journey. Once downtown, I think that the extra station is warranted because the core is the destination for most of the riders.
Any way, I was getting too impractical, I suppose. Although I would like to see a lot more character put into each station, one under the river is probably going too far.
OK, on the Lees Station position: Actually, if people can cross the bus Transitway at the edge of the river bridge, the agregate average walk to the new station would be slightly less than to the existing station. This is because there are three buildings which would be closer. But any way, this is a moot point.
So far, the contractor whas dismissed Lees as being a simple conversion. Looking at the existing Lees Station and its position, though, the curve will force the train station to extend north of the current position.
Since there would still only be access from Lees, this, in my mind, is less than ideal. This might be the simple conversion, but does it make a good system component?
By keeping the train in a tunnel until Hurdman, the new rail station could be better placed to provide more and better access points.
This option pulls the south-east and allows access points at the current location, as well as at the old Algonquin Campus. The existing Transitway would continue to run as it does now for as long as needed. Transfer from the bus would be vertical.
There are times when the cost should be the prime driver of the new rail system. (A case in point is spending $185M to bury the Baseline Station when a $15M surface station would have done the trick.
) Then there are elements which will cost more than the cheapest option but will add more value to the system than their cost. I think that a lot of the tunnel elements should fall within the second group. Yes, it will cost more to tunnel all the way to Hurdman, but the Transitway remains functional, we avoid a $40M 'temporary' bridge for buses, integration with the surrounding buildings (new and existing) can be improved, tunnelled transit systems are less of an impedement to surface activities, and better access to the final system can be achieved.
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If a Parkway route is used, the ramp would need to be removed.), and distribute the transfer load a bit. Also, the #2 bus is diverted from Richmond Road to allow people to transfer to the Transitway at Westboro. This makes sense if the train goes to Westboro, but not if people must transfer to a bus and then transfer to the train one stop later.
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