TTC: Cherry Street reconstruction and streetcar trackage (City of Toronto/TTC, U/C)

[Markster]

Wrong. Read the thread, look at the photos. The tracks are connected but will not be used until after PA Games.

Thanks. I've been following the thread, but it's hard to remember everything and/or search it for details.
For some reason, I'd thought that I remembered that the connection to King was going to be the final piece of trackwork completed.

 

[scamander24]

 

[pman]

Hats off to whoever made this project happen. The public realm here looks like unbelievably high quality design and construction by Toronto standards.

 

[chriskayTO]

So any idea when Cherry St will finally re-open? I believe City Council voted on it in August - someone correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[DSC]

So any idea when Cherry St will finally re-open? I believe City Council voted on it in August - someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Because the road north of Mill was moved a bit west, it cannot open until the Ministry of the Environment signs off on it and this is being worked on - remarkably slowly! At their end of August meeting the West Don lands Construction Committee minutes say:

The team is working to reopen Cherry Street. The section of Cherry Street south from Mill Street to Lake Shore is open. DK/EDL continues to work with the City and IO to get the remainder of Cherry Street and Old Eastern open to the public. Cherry Street remains a priority. The conveyance discussions are now in the hands of the City and IO, who are working to complete transfer and have it open soon.
When approved by the City, DK/EDL will open Old Eastern Avenue from Eastern to St. Lawrence. The portion in front of the Foundry building will not be opened as it is under lease to IO, and Lawren Harris Square is also not yet turned over to the City by IO. As a result once the opening takes place, vehicle traffic will divert north at St. Lawrence and pedestrians will be able to walk through Underpass Park to River Street for access to Corktown Common.

 

[salsa]

TTC won't run streetcars on Cherry until at least 2016

The track work is nearly complete. But it’s likely to be another two years before streetcars are running down Cherry St. from King to south of Mill St. That’s how long it will take for the new West Don Lands neighbourhood to yield a ridership for the stretch, less than 1 kilometre long, that the TTC will probably operate as a spur of the 504 King streetcar.

In the meanwhile, the innovative design to be used on the Cherry St. transit service — with streetcars running in both directions on the east side of the street — will actually make its first appearance on Queens Quay W. next month. After a two-year absence, the 509 and 510 streetcars will return to Queens Quay on Oct. 12, about a year after they were originally supposed to resume. They’ll be tested on the new tracks, on the south side of the street, starting Oct. 5, according to Waterfront Toronto, which is in charge of that street makeover.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/tra...streetcars_on_cherry_until_at_least_2016.html

 

[dowlingm]

Troubled by this Cherry business. So what if the streetcars are running mostly empty, if the loop can be acting as a short turn location (or a relocated 508 terminus) by being available for service? I fear it's just going to end up like the St Clair West turn back moving to Glencairn - keeps getting pushed back and back even as more and more people move in the neighbourhood.

 

[drum118]

I can't believe The ROW and sidewalk between King and Eastern are not finish since I last saw it in July.

Was down in the area a few days ago and took a look at the corridor. Some steel ballers have been place along the curb, but still a lot of work to be done to open up the sidewalk as well allow the owners to use their front door.

Road still close off and what new.

The loop is 100% complete with some more brick work in place. Not sure what is plan for the track area south of the platform area and most likely have wait until 2016 for that. What a waste.

All the fencing that is up is construction fencing only and can be quickly removed in a day or two.

I saw a number of the illegal park dealership cars had tickets on the window shield. Longer over due and wondering how many tickets they are prepared to get before not parking there all together.

 

[Uncle Teddy]

I can't believe The ROW and sidewalk between King and Eastern are not finish since I last saw it in July.

It is rather amazing how long this section is taking. But then I suppose there's little urgency. Not really needed for anything at this point.

 

[DSC]

It is rather amazing how long this section is taking. But then I suppose there's little urgency. Not really needed for anything at this point.

Yes. there is no real urgency to open the east-side sidewalk from King to Eastern, though it would be good to get it done and allow access to Percy Street Park again. (I suspect that the road crews are concentrating on jobs that need deep concrete work - all that needs to be done here is brickwork, and that can be done after it starts freezing.) There is much more 'urgency' in reopening Cherry Street from Mill to Eastern - it is being delayed by 'conveyencing issues' between the City and the Province because the road moved over a few yards. I suspect they forgot that this needed to be done as it could surely have happened during the 3+ years that this road has been closed!

 

[Edward]

I was wondering why Cherry south of Eastern wasn't open already. Thanks for the info.

 

[44 North]

Is there a general consensus on when (if?) this Cherry line will be extended south of the rail corridor? I get that the QQ East line that Cherry would connect to may still be in some fantasy realm, but what I want to know is how realistic will it be for Cherry to cross the Don River mouth/Keating Channel and into the Portlands / future Villiers Island neighbourhood?

As it stands the current Cherry bridge is a lift bridge, and naturally a new dedicated bridge for the streetcar line would be required. How expensive and realistic is that? Would it have to be a lift bridge as well, and is that feasible?

Another reason I ask is that this connection would be important for deadheading trains along Commissoners to the new Leslie Barns, or in the situation where an accident prevents streetcars using Leslie->Queen.

There is a lot going on in this specific area (West Don Lands, Pan Am, East Bayfront developments, Keating Precinct, QQ East line...), and a lot more in the works:
-Unilever redevelopment and extension of Broadview southward
-study of demolishing the Gardiner
-study of demolishing, then rejigging the Gardiner to allow for development
-eventual development of Villers Island and Port Lands
-rebuilding an entire river mouth and wetlands

I'll attach some images for those needing to get gist of the area in question. All were taken from recent-ish reports. The third image shows a DRL with various routings, and GO station. The last image I thought interesting because it involves ferries. Maybe it belongs in the fantasy section...or maybe all of this does. There's definitely a lot to take in and consider, and perhaps this post will serve as a reminder to some.

 

[DSC]

Is there a general consensus on when (if?) this Cherry line will be extended south of the rail corridor?

* Clearly the first requirement is to have the QQE line operating up to Parliament Street.
* It will, eventually, be extended to Cherry when QQE is extended to Cherry but this is probably several years away.
* Cherry Street will be completely rebuilt south of the rail berm and a new bridge constructed (though streetcars can use lift bridges - several in Amsterdam.)
* An LRT line into the Port Lands may then happen but extending it to Leslie Street is decades away.
* Bringing the line under the rail berm is not a cheap thing as it requires a new tunnel as it cannot (they say) use the existing road one.

There are lots of pieces in this "plan" I suggest that you take a look at the QQE Transit EA study on WT site and the many documents on the WT site, the city site and Steve Munro's blog.

 

[Conrad Black]

One reason any future DRL should go as far south as possible. The Port Lands is a huge area that will at some point generate significant traffic. The closer to a subway the better.

 

[drum118]

* Clearly the first requirement is to have the QQE line operating up to Parliament Street.
* It will, eventually, be extended to Cherry when QQE is extended to Cherry but this is probably several years away.
* Cherry Street will be completely rebuilt south of the rail berm and a new bridge constructed (though streetcars can use lift bridges - several in Amsterdam.)
* An LRT line into the Port Lands may then happen but extending it to Leslie Street is decades away.
* Bringing the line under the rail berm is not a cheap thing as it requires a new tunnel as it cannot (they say) use the existing road one.

There are lots of pieces in this "plan" I suggest that you take a look at the QQE Transit EA study on WT site and the many documents on the WT site, the city site and Steve Munro's blog.

As a follow up.

There are only 2 options to take Cherry St south and costly. The rail berm is a barrier that either Cherry underpass is lower with a single lane of mix traffic as well have 2 new tunnels for cycles as option 1. Option 2 is a full new underpass at a cost of about $50 million and would have an impact on GO service for 2 years. Under option 2, there was talk of building a GO station there to service all GO lines. With the talk of a DRL station to the east, the GO station would be move there with the RH line not servicing it.

Transit in the Portland is a 25-50 year time frame using streetcar as transit first option when I and other wrote the Master Transit Plan back in 2004. The only problem doing Streetcar as transit first for the area is TTC not willing to do it as well not having a design what the streets will look like. This include building the infrastructure now.

The new Cherry St to the shipping channel will not be in place for at least 10-15 years at the rate things are going along with changing the approved layout. It will be west of where it is now as noted.

QQ east is a huge barrier at this time due to TTC Dumb idea for Union Station Loop that has stall the the extension to Parliament St. Between TTC demand for the loop that has increase in cost and no money to cover it, it dead at this time. That extension was to be completed next year as plan along with the new road that the west is getting now. There has been a number of studies about using an BRT in the east until funds are found to build the tracks as well for the Portland area. It been almost a year that we last looked at a BRT on QQ E and it was DOA. This has been a barrier getting East Bay built since transit was promises to be there with new cars back operating in 2007.

Have to thank the Ford's for this mess for both areas since they had a total different vision for what the waterfront should look like and hate streetcars.

The Gardiner has no impact on extending Cherry St other than where the Lake Shore will cross it. Cherry St Line has been (or was) design to use any line on the waterfront with lines running all over the place.

One of the big push was to get Commissioner St design and built ASP so it would allow TTC to get cars in/out of the new carhouse faster as well moving traffic better. Hydro One is an issues here at this time.

Until the city gets it act together, transit and the waterfront are screw at this time.

What was vision for the Waterfront and what happening now, it will be more density than plan and you will need streetcars 100%.

I should note that The Master Plan got change by TTC after the plan was approved by dropping the Lake Shore line and a huge mistake.