Toronto Ontario Line 3 | ?m | ?s

Not for the OL, but for the previous RL plan, the City/TTC moved the tunnel south of Gerrard from Pape to Carlaw because locals on Pape complained during the consultation process. This stupidly meant they now had to build the subway directly below a major sewage artery, (which was already being rebuilt so there was no chance of just moving the sewer to Pape in exchange for moving the subway to Carlaw), making the stations deeper and more expensive.
One of the things to consider in respect of the DRL is the relationship between the city and the province. Put simply, it was not in the power of the city to demand a portion of the GO ROW and therefore while I am open to correction, I don’t think it was even considered. Would aversion to elevated, especially given the effects of weather elsewhere on the subway open cuts, still have pushed TTC to an all underground solution, especially if the local councillor was someone who apparently in recent times blocked the extension of Broadview loop due to impacts on parking? Maybe.
 
Some of the existing bus bays at Pape TTC stations to be demolished and two temporary bays to be built on Lipton Ave

Pape Bus Bay Construction Work Notice
Steve Munro has a write up about this but also more radical changes from May to October
 
I do not wish to endlessly re-litigate the tree cutting, some of which was unavoidable......... but I saw a post on Facebook I thought worthy of sharing:

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Photo: Credit as noted:

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I do not wish to endlessly re-litigate the tree cutting, some of which was unavoidable......... but I saw a post on Facebook I thought worthy of sharing:

View attachment 548860

Photo: Credit as noted:

View attachment 548861
Of course no one thinks of all the coyotes on the fringes of the Greenbelt that have been saved by building rapid transit which unlocks higher densities and allows people to avoid living in new urban sprawl.
 
Steve Munro has a write up about this but also more radical changes from May to October
Interesting. There was another poster on the forum who recently mentioned that the Pape station loop would be shut down for much longer, once station construction gets underway.
 
Of course no one thinks of all the coyotes on the fringes of the Greenbelt that have been saved by building rapid transit which unlocks higher densities and allows people to avoid living in new urban sprawl.

In farm country there are organized coyote culls. The more greenbelt we save, the more farmers who will be out hunting coyotes. There's an irony for you.

I am not overly concerned that a single coyote was dislodged for the project - but I would be if a den with kits was dislodged, or if a less prevalent species more known for vulnerability and difficulty of adapting to change was involved. I'm pretty confident that this particular coyote will adapt.

That's why we leave EA's to qualified experts, who can tell us whether a project's disruption to wildlife is excessive or not. The writeup is heartfelt, but I'm not sure it's anything to cause concern with this project.

- Paul
 
One of the things to consider in respect of the DRL is the relationship between the city and the province. Put simply, it was not in the power of the city to demand a portion of the GO ROW and therefore while I am open to correction, I don’t think it was even considered. Would aversion to elevated, especially given the effects of weather elsewhere on the subway open cuts, still have pushed TTC to an all underground solution, especially if the local councillor was someone who apparently in recent times blocked the extension of Broadview loop due to impacts on parking? Maybe.

The original "Queen Subway" (the underground streetcar) TTC proposal from the 1940s followed the railway corridor as far as Pape/Gerrard. The corridor was owned by the CNR at the time, a crown corporation, so I'm sure they could've figured something out. The route was still mostly industrial at the time, too, so there would've been space.

Whether passengers on those old Peter Witt and PCC cars would've enjoyed traveling right alongside giant freight cars is a different issue altogether, I guess.

For fun, here's a picture of the Queen Street East rail overpass, looking north on the east side of the bridge. That's the old Dunlop Tire factory on the right, which is Jimmie Simpson Park today.
queen-st-suburban-place.jpg
 
And to combine the two prevailing topics here.... here's the park on Degrassi Street just north of Queen, about 100 years apart.

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The trees are all different. All of them....

I'm sympathetic towards people who lost some local flora but, c'mon, hard to take anyone seriously who pitches it as some kind of permanent decline.
 
Wont' be a permanent decline, but will take decades to grow back to where it was.
yea but one has to realise that they are living in a metropolis and they cant be living in a suburban or rural fauna environment permanently. cities grow and sometimes trees need to make way for development.
as long as theres a decent landscape especially if theres a replanting plan then its all fair.
 
Wont' be a permanent decline, but will take decades to grow back to where it was.

The 2022 Ontario corridor dechero did thousands of times more damage to trees than what was cut down in Seaton for the Ontario Line.

The scale of that devastation is beyond anything most Toronto urbanists can wrap their heads around -- most of it passed north of the city. If you drive to Ottawa along highway 7, past Peterborough, you will see several spots where it's clear that it will take decades for the trees to grow back, each spot being massively larger than the entirety of Seaton.

If you want to be sad about trees being lost, be sad for that.... or the ice storm a decade ago that destroyed 20% of all the trees in the city.... or hey, go visit that beautiful solitary Elm tree on Fennings & Queen West, and meditate on how this whole part of North America was filled with these trees until a disease wiped them out.

At least this tree culling is being done for a noble purpose that serves all people, not for something stupid like a golf course, luxury townhouses, or some other commercial enterprise. Even if the trees never grow back to their former glory, we're still better off.
 

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