Dufferin Street: Eliminating the jog

[DENTROBATE54]

Not 100% decided, but not mixed traffic, an not in a separate on-street ROW south of St. Clair. The original suggestion was to put it in a subway south of St. Clair.

Yes Jane will have to be subterranean south of St Clair. Although it's a four-lane street often parking's permitted restricting the roadway to two. Now that most areas downtown have been built up it'll be increasingly diffucult to set aside lands for transit ROWs.

 

[Towered]

Given the fact that those poor Dufferin buses have the burden of having to carry more riders than the Sheppard subway, it must be one of the top corridors in the city well deserving some kind of upgrade to higher order transit. That's why I'm surprised that there's no mention of potentially building, at the very least, a streetcar in mixed traffic, since I thought that the jog had been the only reason one hadn't been constructed ages ago already. An LRT line would be even better, though the whole thing (at least south of Bloor) would have to be tunnelled. I'm surprised Dufferin was ignored by Transit City - then again that plan pretty much ignored all of downtown.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

The Bloor split means the Dufferin bus is not as busy as the Sheppard line or a bus route like Finch.

Anyone know what the N/S of Bloor split is on the Dufferin route? 70/30 maybe? Even if *only* 15,000 ride it south of Bloor, that's still a lot of people for 3km.

TransitCity did not base its lines on corridors with ridership/burdens, just on politics and priority neighbourhoods.

 

[unimaginative2]

I'm really quite sad, actually, that they didn't make this tunnel wide enough for a streetcar. I really think that Dufferin would be a great place for a streetcar, and it would be so easy since it's already half-built.

 

[DENTROBATE54]

TransitCity did not base its lines on corridors with ridership/burdens, just on politics and priority neighbourhoods.

Right, that explains Sheppard East then. I'm very familiar with the Dufferin area so I know that service is densest between Eglinton and Dundas. About one-third of all south passengers get off before College due to Dufferin Mall. North and south of those points you'd still see passenger loads similar to 11 Bayview. Dufferin's too close to the Spadina Line explaining why it's overlooked. The only reason Jane was chosen over Dufferin for TC is because there it's the only comparative north-south artery to it and Don Mills so to be impartial to the west (Don Mills, Scarborough Malvern, Sheppard East, Kingston: all east-centric routes) it's added in. Splitting the route into two might improve service to areas on both sides of Bloor.

 

[Towered]

Transit City really should have included more north-south LRT's in the west of the city. Etobicoke got nothing. Apparently Kipling was strongly considered but was cut along with some other routes around the city so as not to make the plan look overly ambitious (ie. expensive). That would have been a logical choice given that it runs kind of in the middle of Etobicoke (though Islington is the true centre median) and Kipling station will shortly become a major transit hub. Perhaps it will hopefully be included in a Transit City "phase II" after the current lines have been constructed. I also know Suzan Hall fought to get an EA for an LRT on the 427/27 corridor, so maybe something will still come of that. That would also be a good potential LRT route, but the gap between there and Jane is huge.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Transit City lines were chosen based solely on political whims, bringing streetcars to 1. every ward and 2. 'priority neighbourhoods.' It is not a coincidence that the 6 suburban lines intersect at Jane & Finch, Flemingdon Park, and Malvern.

 

[unimaginative2]

I'm a big supporter of streetcars on Dufferin and Coxwell. These are cheap projects that would be easy to implement.

 

[Lone Primate]

It's all pretty exciting, I admit, but I'm at a loss to understand why this is being done. Where does Dufferin go south of Queen Street that this is so necessary? I could understand if it were an interchange with the Gardiner, but it can be considered that at best only obliquely. There are only a couple of blocks south, and then it pretty much just dies at the Ex.

It seems to me that the dogleg at Lansdowne and Jameson at Queen ought to have been addressed instead, or at least in addition to this. It does form an interchange with the highway, and the short run to a left turn when one is southbound has been a bone in Queen Street's throat for decades now. If it were one intersection instead of two, that would ameliorate a lot of the problem. It's gotten so bad that the city has removed the pedestrian crossings on the inside of the complex; you can cross Queen west of Jarvis or east of Lansdowne, but not between them anymore. I think this is one they should really look at.

What other intersections in the city could use some streamlining?

 

[catcher_of_cats]

Dufferin will connect directly to Lakeshore in a few years by a new connection that continues the road south past Medieval Times, through the park, to Lakeshore. Also, the Front Street Extension (local route part) will connect to Dufferin near Springhurst if that road ever gets built. These two projects along with a possibility of a streetcar route of Dufferin, combined with safety issues are the reasons why this project is necessary.

 

[CDL.TO]

For those headed east on King or Queen, British Columbia Rd and Dufferin is a much better route from the Gardiner than Jameson, and this will improve it as a route northward. Dufferin is both wider and more free-flowing.

Eliminating the Lansdowne/Jameson jog would require a fair bit of destruction of homes and stores.

 

[MetroMan]

Eliminating the Lansdowne/Jameson jog would require a fair bit of destruction of homes and stores.

Not necessarily:

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=43.640303,-79.436908&spn=0.001083,0.002792&t=h&z=19&om=1

There is only one line of stores, just a couple of which would need to be removed, while a few more would probably go as well. Directly behind those stores is a basketball court with plenty of room to make a curved road on to Jameson Avenue.

This one would be much easier than eliminating the Dufferin Jog. It's just a matter of expropriating a few homes/stores and building the street.

 

[CDL.TO]

There is only one line of stores, just a couple of which would need to be removed, while a few more would probably go as well.

I guess I consider the demolition of four Queen Street buildings to be a fair bit of destruction. And I'm not sure how building it through a schoolyard would go over. But yes, it would certainly be easier.

 

[MetroMan]

Looking closer, the basketball court wouldn't be affected. There's a small patch of grass north of the court that in conjunction with the space freed up by the demolished buildings would be sufficient to make a soft curve on to Jameson.

The more I look at this, the more I wonder why there isn't any talk of executing such a plan. The number of cars lining up to make a left turn on to Jameson make it a dangerous intersection for both pedestrians and Eastbound cars.

I used to live at that intersection, but happily moved East to Trinity Bellwoods Park on Queen. If I still lived here, I would begin a petition to get this on the radar.
I once put pressure on our councillor around election time to rebuild the sidewalk which was looking disastrous. Although he replied that it was scheduled to be rebuilt 2 years from then, enough signatures and letters apparently convinced them to do it sooner as one morning soon after I woke up and the construction crew was on site doing the work.

 

[Jonny5]

It seems to me that the dogleg at Lansdowne and Jameson at Queen ought to have been addressed instead, or at least in addition to this. It does form an interchange with the highway, and the short run to a left turn when one is southbound has been a bone in Queen Street's throat for decades now. If it were one intersection instead of two, that would ameliorate a lot of the problem. It's gotten so bad that the city has removed the pedestrian crossings on the inside of the complex; you can cross Queen west of Jarvis or east of Lansdowne, but not between them anymore. I think this is one they should really look at.

Are you aware of the new traffic signal implementation at that intersection? It was put in earlier this year and is quite a complex set-up. I don't go through very often and have been wondering if it has helped with the backlog of traffic.