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What I actually meant about the Toronto comparison is that Toronto services the entire 30.2 km, 31 station, Yonge- University- Spadina subway line from a major maintenance yard at one end of the line, on Downsview air base. This is incidentally a single-ended yard. There is a second very small yard on the Yonge line at Davisville Station, but it dates from 1954 and could not be expanded because it is in a built-up residential area, so heavy work is not done there. It is used to store the trains of Torontos newest line, the 5.5 km Sheppard subway. There are only three intermediate stations between Davisville and Sheppard on the Yonge line, so feeding the trains that way is not very disruptive. The 26.2 km, also 31-station, Bloor-Danforth east-west subway does also have a yard, but only one, at Greenwood near the east end, and it too is single-ended. Although there is a connection between the two lines, it is right downtown at Bloor Street and would be a difficult point to try to exchange trains between the two lines. This is quite different from Walkley Yard which would have direct access to both the north south and east west LRT lines. Also as you saw, Walkley yard is already double-ended east-west and has rail exits facing both north and south as well. |
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Rejean Chartrand said
at the public meeting that the east-west line was so long that it would
have to have separate maintenance facilities at each end, and that therefore
it didnt matter that the Airport Parkway site was not well-placed
to serve it.
For our system, there will not be enough LRT cars to justify three, or even two facilities. Even with the east-west line plus Rideau Street, Montreal Road, Carling Avenue, Barrhaven and the Airport it is only forecast to be about 100 cars. In Toronto, GO Transit maintains its fleet of 381 cars and 45 locomotives at one maintenance facility. (Some other smaller yards are used only for storage and have no shops facilities). The Toronto subway, which does have two main yards, plus one older one, maintains a fleet of 684 subway cars. So for Ottawa to have three yards for 100 cars would be ludicrous. In any case, as I said, Walkley yard has current track capacity for at least 200 light rail cars. Regards, |