Toronto Ontario Line 3 | ?m | ?s

DirectionNorth said:
Seriously, this forum of transit advocates is now willing to NIMBY a transit line over ... five trees? Huh?

Is putting the entrance somewhere else a better option? Yes.

Is Metrolinx a piece (or pieces) of shit? Yes.

Are they the least transparent agency anyone's ever dealt with, ever? Yes.
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We shouldn’t have to put up with this much incompetence just to get a transit line built.

And what are they really doing this for? To save a lane on University Avenue?
 
APTA-2048 said:
We shouldn’t have to put up with this much incompetence just to get a transit line built.

And what are they really doing this for? To save a lane on University Avenue?
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Unfortunately, we're stuck with Metrolinx for the time being. Which means we *have* to put up with their incompetence to get a transit line built.

Again, if they can redesign University Avenue and the station with minimal delays, I say go for it. But unless we are willing to push back this project yet again ...
 
APTA-2048 said:
Half the building in the render looks like empty space. Of course people are gonna wonder why it has to be so big.
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This is why it would be really nice if MX actually gave us plans instead of just pretty pictures, but Metrolinx gonna Metrolinx I guess. They are frustratingly opaque at the best of times unfortunately.

That said, you need a decent amount of space for things like fare gates (which will likely be in that empty space at street level), passenger circulation, and ideally enough space that there are no incidents of people being crushed to death in an emergency where the station has to be evacuated. There's also just legal requirements like fire codes which have changed a lot since the older subway stations were built. To some extent, those force larger structures to be built in order to be compliant.

We have a problem as it is in this city where stations are just too small for the volume of passengers (which is why we now have to spend a billion dollars expanding Bloor-Yonge, which notably includes adding new entrances/possibly expanding the existing main entrance). I'd rather we planned ahead and didn't have to keep rebuilding everything over and over in the future because we didn't plan ahead the first time.
 
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DirectionNorth said:
Unfortunately, we're stuck with Metrolinx for the time being. Which means we *have* to put up with their incompetence to get a transit line built.

Again, if they can redesign University Avenue and the station with minimal delays, I say go for it. But unless we are willing to push back this project yet again ...
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Yeah this is basically where I am on this project. Not a fan of Metrolinx for the most part, but they are what we have, and we need this transit line.

While it's possible, I don't think there is any chance we redesign University Avenue in time to make this work without significant delays to the OL. Any changes would need to happen as soon as possible as moving the access shaft down to the station from the planned site into University Avenue requires a redesign of the station. Things like "where are the elevator shafts", or "how does the ventilation system work" have to be redesigned. Maybe this is just me having a background in this stuff, but I feel like some people seem to just think you can casually relocate significant structural elements of an engineering project and there won't be significant time or cost impacts, when it's not the case. Any changes need to be made right now, or they will become too expensive to happen later on in the project lifecycle. And I can't see council moving fast enough to do that. It would require them to skip the obligatory "pilot project" phase of doing literally anything in this city.
 
DirectionNorth said:
Unfortunately, we're stuck with Metrolinx for the time being. Which means we *have* to put up with their incompetence to get a transit line built.

Again, if they can redesign University Avenue and the station with minimal delays, I say go for it. But unless we are willing to push back this project yet again ...
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One should not assume that this one element is critical path.

This is Metrolinx, the agency with a reputation for not delivering on time.

In all likelihood some other part of the project will bog down, and any delay caused by rejigging design of this one station will not be material to the end date.

Or the cost projection.

- Paul
 
so heres metrolinx's pr going ham

Metrolinx addresses concerns surrounding future Osgoode Station

Transit agency lays out need for Ontario Line station location & tree removals.
www.metrolinx.com

theres a link to the presentation of that "independent reviewer" of all the other options thought of.
basically the campbell house location is the only other option, which in itself will require advanced studies
 
crs1026 said:
One should not assume that this one element is critical path.

This is Metrolinx, the agency with a reputation for not delivering on time.

In all likelihood some other part of the project will bog down, and any delay caused by rejigging design of this one station will not be material to the end date.

Or the cost projection.

- Paul
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As someone who works in project management, this is not how any of this works. A delay in construction (as happened on Eglinton) does not mean you can slow down the design process preemptively. All that does is mean even more things will be delayed overall. You build in contingencies for sure, but you cannot just assume "oh this is fine cus something will go wrong somewhere else".

Honestly, this forum has descended into absurd fantasy territory when it comes to the OL. People seem to think you can change the plans for a multi-billion dollar project in a few hours because some people on the internet got mad about it.

And tbh, I'm done with it. Y'all go on believing you can have your insane subway line where no trees are removed, disabled people just teleport into the station because all the entrances are street walkdowns. Whatever. I'm not going to keep fighting with a bunch of people who do not understand how engineering works anymore. See ya.
 
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TossYourJacket said:
Honestly, this forum has descended into absurd fantasy territory when it comes to the OL. People seem to think you can change the plans for a multi-billion dollar project in a few hours because some people on the internet got mad about it.
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The “absurd fantasy territory” is when a provincial agency waits until the chain saws are warming up before tabling its technical data to explain itself. Or asserts a legal right to plow ahead without explaining itself.

The Parsons report is a valid technical analysis and gives lots of things to consider. Had it been made public six months ago, and had interested parties been given the opportunity to comment, to offer other data, and to challenge Parsons’ conclusions or apply others’ expert input, we would have had a constructive debate and the “rock and hard place” dilemma that the designers face might have been more properly resolved without injunctions or vigils.

I note that the report all but screams that the Campbell house site is also pretty workable. In a more proper public consultation, the public might have been faced with a hard choice - protect Osgoode or protect Campbell house, but not both. I’m not taking sides, but that would be a much more “adult” decision process than how this has unfolded.

Unfortunately, the only thing that will stop Ml from its heavyhanded behaviour is when they are forced to stop dead in their tracks and do it right. So yes, I would say the project should delay and resolve this issue properly - and let’s be clear, the delay is attributable to ML cutting corners, not due to some extreme segment of the population. The 200-year-old Osgoode trees are not just shade canopy, and are not replaceable. The proposal to remove them is not something to debate on the fly.

We need good government as much, or more, than we need this subway. Wherever the construction ends up, the greater good is served by making ML play properly.

- Paul
 
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It’s extremely uncomfortable for me to say this, given my dislike of Metrolinx’s process and decision-making and my general support for green space - but I’d take cutting down the trees over a delay to the Ontario Line.

I think Metrolinx does need to rethink how it works with the community, but I think this attitude comes from the top, and simply getting their hands slapped here isn’t going to create sustainable organizational change.
 
From an accessibility and traffic standpoint, building an entrance in the median would not be ideal. Everyone leaving the station at that entrance would *have* to cross a street, particularly to access surface transit.

Metrolinx is a bureaucratic monster, and I'm not rooting for the trees to be cut down, but folks, it'll be okay if the trees are cut down.
 
ARG1 said:
I hope not. It's a bloody tree, it can also be replanted later. Maybe since I see things differently because I'm not a local and I don't have this attachment to specific trees, but even my favourite trees, I'd be fine to seeing them let go if it meant building this subway line. Like are we really going to have to go back to the drawing board to build a more expensive subway station, just so we wouldn't have to chop down a couple of trees? Are you kidding me? Get the hatchets and shovels out, and build the line already!.
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The drawing board? Hardly. The RL didn't have the station destroying heritage property and taking up a prominent park space in the center of the city.
Somehow other people figured out other options, but ML being ML want to do things in the most obtuse way.
 
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