> I have always viewed Queen Street through Parkdale as one of the
> bottlenecks, especially during events at the Ex and fireworks. That
> might explain why Shaw was chosen.

You almost want to split the Queen car into _three_ routes: Long
Branch-Dundas West, Humber-Church and McCaul-Neville. That way, the
TTC could place extra cars on the Parkdale section to maintain service
levels through the slow running area, and use fewer cars on the outer
branches while maintaining the same level of service where traffic
flows more freely.

> Where is the proposed Queen and Broadview loop when you need it?
I remember Steve Munro saying that the east branch's proposed western
terminus was problematic. The reasoning is as follows:

You can put the west end terminal at McCaul Loop. This is what 502
Downtowner does, after all, and all the switches are in place.
However, the westernmost short turn (Church-Richmond-York) ends up
avoiding Osgoode station and making an inconvenient link with Queen
station). It's important to maintain a reliable connection with the
subway.

You can put the west end terminal at Wolseley Loop at Bathurst Street.
And indeed, this would be my first instinct, as McCaul becomes the
obvious short-turn, maintaining links with the subway. However, you
encounter heavy congestion on Queen between Bathurst and Spadina, and
the turns to and from Queen and Bathurst are a lot more congested than
Queen and McCaul. Having people disembark at this stop en masse
lengthens the delays. You'd really need to put in some transit
priority signalling to save at least a couple of minutes dwell time at
this intersection.

There are, of course, no off-street loops between Bathurst and
Sunnyside.

Another option that might be possible could be Bathurst station. This
provides a new connection between the Bloor-Danforth subway and the
downtown. The question is, how do we reduce service on Bathurst?
What's the minimum service required between Queen and Queen's Quay?
Could we increase service on 509 Harbourfront to compensate? The
disadvantage of this arrangement is that it lengthens the Queen line's
run through a congested area.

In terms of on-street loops, you have the following options:

- Charlotte Loop (maintains McCaul as a short turn loop, but the
number of turns could lengthen delays)
- Shaw-King-Spadina or Spadina-King-Shaw (again, maintains McCaul as
the short turn loop. Provides additional service on Queen between Shaw
and Spadina. But runs into congestion on Queen west of Spadina)
- Shaw-King-Dufferin or Dufferin-King-Shaw (same advantages as above.
Same disadvantages, except now the route is longer).
- Dufferin Loop (Uses McCaul and Wolseley as short turn loops.
Congestion issues through Parkdale)

Note that curves do NOT exist for Queen cars to turn southbound onto
Bathurst, or for northbound Bathurst cars to turn east on Queen.

It doesn't get much better for the east end of the western branch.
Here, the first instinct would be to loop the cars via Church-Richmond-
Victoria. This the loop Long Branch cars took into the sixties and the
seventies when every third rush-hour car headed past Humber to the
downtown. However, the next eastern short-turn loop is McCaul, which
means there's no connection to the subway. Until the construction of
the Queen-Broadview loop takes place (and the TTC might want to hurry
that along at this point), you're looking at an on-street loop of
Parliament-Dundas-Broadview or vice-versa, or possibly a run up to
Broadview station.

You begin to see the advantages of Steve Munro's proposed Long Branch-
Dundas West/Humber-Neville arrangement. The obvious short turn points
here maintain the connection between the two services, and keep Queen
cars connected with the subway at Queen and Osgoode. Moreover, you can
then put CLRVs into service on the Long Branch section, increasing
frequencies, and concentrate the ALRVs on the heavier Queen segment.

However, the TTC believes that southern Etobicoke residents _want_
that downtown connection (and there are posters in this mailing list
who used it). With that in mind, I can see where the TTC arrived at
the arrangement of Neville-Wolesley (or Bathurst Station) and Long
Branch-Church.

And let's not forget 502 Downtowner, as I fear the TTC planners may
have done so. More could be done to improve the reliability of service
on Kingston Road, and they need to consider making better use of these
cars to relieve overburdened Queen cars running downtown. Steve Munro
suggests combining the 502 and 503 operations during rush hour, so
that the combined service between Bingham and McCaul is a meaningful 7
minute frequency.

All the best,
James
====================================
= James Bow - james@...
= http://bowjamesbow.ca
= http://transit.toronto.on.ca