Ridership projections on Mayor John Tory’s signature SmartTrack transit plan could attract more daily riders than the 270,000 the entire GO system carries today. It would also reduce crowding on the Yonge-University subway south of Bloor St. by as much as 17 per cent.

Those are among the findings of a report prepared by the University of Toronto Transportation Research Institute and Toronto’s planning department to be released at Toronto City Hall on Tuesday.

The report that was originally expected last fall, shows that SmartTrack could make good on Tory’s campaign promise to relieve crowding on the lower end of the Yonge line, a claim that had been met with skepticism. The forecasts even exceed the 200,000 per day ridership that Tory predicted during his campaign.

The numbers also demonstrate that frequency of service and fare prices would play a key role in boosting ridership on the tracks that would connect three critical employment hubs downtown, in Mississauga and Markham.

SmartTrack would perform best with five-minute headways; priced at the cost of a TTC token, the service would attract 315,000 SmartTrack riders in 2031, the study shows. (Computer modelling throughout the study is based on 2031 ridership and transit scenarios.) That’s compared to 154,000 riders if the trains ran every 10 minutes and only 77,000 with 15-minutes frequencies.

But at the higher prices charged by GO, the ridership forecasts dropped dramatically. Only about a third as many riders would be willing to pay GO-level fares, even if the trains ran every five minutes. At 15 minutes apart and priced at the same rate as GO trains, SmartTrack would attract fewer than 38,000 riders a day — just below the 39,000 expected to ride the Yonge subway in the busiest hour of the morning rush.

“There appears to be a very significant latent demand for transit service in the corridor that manifests itself once the transit service becomes sufficiently attractive,” says the report.

If SmartTrack ran every five minutes it would take 6,662 riders off the Yonge subway. Under every-15-minutes SmartTrack service, however, the difference on the Yonge line would be only 1,300 fewer riders in that peak hour.

The study used computer modelling of a scenario in which SmartTrack would run from Unionville through Union Station and continue along the Kitchener GO tracks to Mount Dennis where it would veer onto a new track that would carry riders to the Airport Corporate Centre.

The scenario is based on SmartTrack having 23 stations and a heavy-rail corridor west of Mount Dennis rather than the LRT envisioned along Eglinton under Metrolinx’s plan.

Also being released on Tuesday is the Western Corridor Feasibility Review which looks at the various scenarios for taking SmartTrack to the airport employment lands, the second largest employment node in the Toronto region.

According to the ridership study, SmartTrack would either run along Eglinton Ave. W. or on a path that runs further north along the Kitchener tracks and then turns back south past the airport to the job hub.

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