Toronto Queens Quay & Water's Edge Revitalization | ?m | ?s | Waterfront Toronto

Queens Quay/Lower Don EA's PIC

There are 2 PIC for the waterfront for the Central Queens Quay and the
Lower Don related to LRT's in Dec. East Bay is still on hold and will
move forward early 2009.

East Bay will only be looking at the Portals now as Central Queens
Quay design will apply to that section now.

3 options will be put forth for the Central.

Option 1: leaving TTC where it is and only having one lane for both
directions with parking on the north side. Bike lanes on the road.

Option 2: One lane in either direction on the north side of TTC as
proposed with parking in the westbound lane. No bike lanes as they
will on the south side.

Option 3: One way traffic going westbound only with parking on the
north side. This is the way I am going as it will work the best of all
things.

The section between Spadina-Bathurst will be rebuilt to match option
2/3. This eliminates the traffic issue between the two areas.

The big issue is where to put the tour buses so they don't load or off
load on the QQ. Need to build a lot for them.

Hope to get construction underway in 2010, but more like 2011. The
line will be out of service for at least 2+ years depending what going
to happen with the portals and Union Loop.

Grass between the rails with NO centre poles.

Cherry St will not have centre poles also that under design for
construction in 2009/10.

Lower Don will see a new Cherry Street built to the west of the silos
including a new bridge. The existing one will be remove after the new
one in place. The road will line up better with the north side.

Commissioners St is history west of the Don Rdwy.

There will be a new loop just north of the shipping channel where
Cherry St will reconnect to the existing section. There will be
another loop just to the east of Don Rdwy on Commissioners St. Each
loop will be a stop with only one on Villiers mid point and at QQ.
They are about 300m radius.

It assume the LRT will be on the west side of Cherry St, but not sure
about Villiers St.

This project is still years off.

The rail underpass's will be looked at in the next phase

Presentations will be about 40 minutes long.

QQ PIC
Date: Monday, December 8, 2008
Location: Harbourfront Community Centre
627 Queens Quay West (at Bathurst)
Time: 6:00 p.m. (Open House)
7:00 p.m. (Presentation & Facilitated Discussion)

Lower Don
Date: Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Location: St. Lawrence Hall, 157 King Street East, Great Hall
Time: 6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. (Open House)
7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. (Presentation & Facilitated Discussion)
 
The West 8 design is one more step closer to reality based on the public comment Monday night. In fact, option 5 is being propose as the way to go and totally agree.

In just over a year, the car folks have lost their voice for this project.

I have push the West 8 design from the start and it is now been looked at for other TTC routes as well other systems now. Cherry St is already under construction detailing for the first section with construction to start in late 2009 or early 2010.

The project team was taken back some what by hearing the strong support of option 5. They figure option 4 was going to get more hits than it did with a stronger push for the centre of the road.

The centre of the road had some supports even from the cycling community. A strong split in the cycling community.

TTC is starting to see a strong backlass on their thinking ROW should look like as well operate.

Very strong support for having grass between the tracks and rail.

The final option as well layout will be brought forth in early 2009 and to be approved by year end.

Construction would start most likely in 2011 and not completed until 2013/14 depending what happen to the portals as well Union Station loop. This may have an impact on the Tall Ship Mast event been plan for 2013 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the war of 1812.

Still a lot of work to be done as there is a need to find a parking/staging area for tour buses as well deal with some driveways that will have to be close or relocated. Also, deliveries.

The section between Bathurst and Spadina is schedule to have the same make over as the section from Spadina and Bay. The residents in this area want the same design to continue west of Bathurst St also.

There was a call from the BIA as well a large group for TTC to scrap the current tunnel to Union and convert it to a pedestrian tunnel
 
100th Anniversary for the war of 1812? Wouldnt that be 200 years?

maybe they meant the 100th anniversary of the 100th anniversary? Or not. Probably just an honest mistake lol.

Interesting about the tunnel idea.
 
There was a call from the BIA as well a large group for TTC to scrap the current tunnel to Union and convert it to a pedestrian tunnel

If we get rid of the Bay Street tunnel, how will the streetcars get to Union? Striaght up Bay street? And then where to turn around? They would be tied up for an extra 20 to 30 minutes looping on the streets. There are no viable alternatives to using the tunnel I can think of.
 
And on top of that, what a long and depressing drag of a pedestrian tunnel that would be--all the more so for the water-table problems the tunnel's been plagued with from the start...
 
The idea, already studied and rejected, was that streetcars would run straight across Queen's Quay with no trip up to Union, and riders would transfer to and from the subway on vast moving sidewalks.
 
The idea, already studied and rejected, was that streetcars would run straight across Queen's Quay with no trip up to Union, and riders would transfer to and from the subway on vast moving sidewalks.

Those worked well at Spadina station.
 
I really had no idea where to put this. There are so many threads for the Waterfront, so I put it in this one. Move the post to another thread if there is a better one for it.
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Queens Quay future looks brighter than ever

Christopher Hume

No one could accuse Chris Glaisek of lacking ambition. If he gets his way, it's only a matter of time before Queens Quay becomes the most beautiful street in Toronto, and more than that, one of the most beautiful streets in the world.

"I'm really excited," says Glaisek, vice-president of development at Waterfront Toronto, the agency overseeing the revitalization of 800 hectares on the shores of Lake Ontario.

"Queens Quay will become as famous as Las Ramblas in Barcelona; people will come from all over the world to see it."

Glaisek is not a man given to hyperbole, and after having spent years going mano a mano with traffic engineers, safety enforcers, architects, public works officials and politicians, the mere fact he continues to dream – and dream so big – should be reassuring.

Despite public perception that nothing ever happens on the waterfront, the fact is that a lot is going on. Just this week, the board of Waterfront Toronto approved a bold $181 million scheme to remake Queens Quay from Jarvis St. east to Parliament St.

The plan, designed by Adriaan Geuze of West 8, one of the most sought-after landscape architects in the world, calls for a complete remake of the precinct. By extension, it also proposes a whole new approach to urban infrastructure in Toronto.

The key is integration. That sounds simple, and in many ways it is. The problem has traditionally been a public works mentality that sees infrastructure as little more than a series of engineering problems.

In the 21st century, however, that no longer suffices; the idea now is to introduce other disciplines into the design process to create a different kind of infrastructure that serves its purpose as it provides pleasure.

"We've worked hard with the city," says Glaisek. "Things have evolved nicely."

Indeed, he has managed to get the city to approve Toronto's first woonerf. In case you've forgotten, that's one of those roads where vehicular and pedestrian traffic share space equally. The concept was pioneered in Holland, where, despite the lack of street signs, it works brilliantly.

So far, the city has only approved woonerfs for the residential neighbourhood to be built in the West Don Lands. The woonerfs Glaisek wants in the East Bayfront must wait for the time being.

But the critical thing is that change has come to the civic bureaucracy.

"I really do think the city is changing and becoming sensitized to urban design," says Glaisek.

When complete, sometime in 2010, Queens Quay will be a two-lane road (down from four) with a grass-covered right-of-way for streetcars. New granite paving will be installed on an expansive tree-lined boulevard that extends along the south side of the street.

An 18-metre-wide water's edge promenade, made of wood and granite, will hug the shoreline. Extra space on the far side should allow for outdoor cafés and the like.

Just beneath the pathway, an innovative stormwater treatment system will collect and clean rain before it is pumped back into the lake. According to Glaisek, the system costs $50 million to $100 million less than conventional methods and does a better job.

Ironically, the result is that Waterfront Toronto finds itself in an enviable situation where its focus on infrastructure has acquired sudden urgency.

If it's true that public infrastructure spending is the most effective way out of a looming depression, Glaisek and his colleagues are setting an excellent example way out in front of the curve.

The significance of Waterfront Toronto's efforts lies in a realization that the infrastructure is the city and the city is its infrastructure. To build one is to build the other.

Source
 
If it were extended down to Spadina it'd make for an even stronger waterfront.
In fact WT is redoing Queen's Quay from Cherry to Bathurst but are doing so in sections, the most recent section to get attention is the Jarvis to Parliament one (East Bay Front). Planning for the next section going east (West Don Lands) is also well underway and had an EA meeting last week.
 
Sorry, that was probably the dumbest comment I've ever made. I knew that they were doing the whole thing, and it was being done in sections. For some reason when I read Hume's article and it said they were only going to Jarvis I jumped to a conclusion. I'm going to chalk that up to having not had my morning tea yet. Cool?
Moving on...
 
Meeting for the Queens Quay Revitalization EA

Perfer plan will be table so shovels can be in the ground in 2010.

Public Meeting #3 (Presentation & Facilitated Discussion)

Date: Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Location: TBD
Time: 6:30 p.m.

Public Meeting #3 (Open House)
Date: Saturday, March 28, 2009
Location: TBD
Time: 10:00am – 1:00pm
 

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