King-Queen-Roncy Intersection/ROW

[Steve Munro]

The TTC Notice says:

Roncesvalles: April 2022 to August 2022 Harvard Avenue to Dundas Street West: AODA upgrades to existing TTC platforms so I assume that is yet to come.

Do you have a link to a current notice with this time frame? The platform realignments were always part of "stage 3" when the junction at the north gate to the carhouse was to be rebuilt, but this stage won't begin until September thanks to overall delays. It would make sense to do the work now rather than waiting until the fall, but this could also be linked to diversion plans for the 504C shuttle and waiting for things to get back to "normal" at Dundas West Station.

 

[DSC]

Do you have a link to a current notice with this time frame? The platform realignments were always part of "stage 3" when the junction at the north gate to the carhouse was to be rebuilt, but this stage won't begin until September thanks to overall delays. It would make sense to do the work now rather than waiting until the fall, but this could also be linked to diversion plans for the 504C shuttle and waiting for things to get back to "normal" at Dundas West Station.

I saw it yesterday and should have added the link. Today I cannot find it but the TTC website is filled with duplicated and contradictory information. Sorry!

 

[drum118]

The TTC Notice says:

Roncesvalles: April 2022 to August 2022 Harvard Avenue to Dundas Street West: AODA upgrades to existing TTC platforms so I assume that is yet to come.

You mean this??

In July 2021, the City’s contractor encountered unforeseen utility conflicts at the KQQR intersection during excavation for new pole installations. In order to ensure safety and to resolve the conflicts work was paused. This delayed to the start of Stage 2 work to November 13, 2021.

At the present time, the City’s contractor is working on The Queensway (west of Sunnyside Avenue) towards Parkside Drive, which the east limit of the work zone. Crews are also finalizing work on King Street West (south of Queen Street West) to approximately 100 metres further south and at the KQQR intersection proper.

Previous delays, combined with some periods of adverse fall/winter weather, COVID-19 related labour shortages and supply chain issues have deferred completion of Stage 2 work (KQQR intersection, The Queensway and King Street West) to September 3, 2022.

Work on Stage 3 (the final stage) will start on Roncesvalles Avenue from the KQQR intersection to Harvard Avenue on September 4, 2022, and will be completed by the end of December 2022*.

After talking to Steve today, Hydro work is real behind to the point that TTC poles can't be install on the southside that will support the Sunnyside Loop OS to the ROW centre poles. It also prevent the road curb to be form and pour so the road can be rebuilt.

Did not looked at Glendale Ave Intersection to see why the ROW was not dug out up to it, but look like hydro work was taking place in the area that is preventing it.

The support for the OS to/from the yard is in place, but TTC hasn't strung the OS to the support for Queen and King yet. TTC can't do the string until the eastbound traffic is move to the new lanes and having the westbound using the curb lane.

Until the OS is strung and the ROW for the yard area is for streetcars only, neither 501 or 504 can loop the yard or Sunnyside Loop. At the same time, 512, 505 and 506 cars still have to use the east gate preventing replacement of the tracks and switches on Roncesvalles and don't see work starting in Sept as plan at this time.

Photos to follow

 

[AHK]

If I recall correctly - the rebuild for much of the main King Street street car tracks and roadway is scheduled for 2023. If that is correct, and at the rate the King / Queen / Roncesvalles intersection project is going, the projects may merge seamlessly from one into the other, resulting in an uninterrupted multi-year interruption to the 504 King car service....

 

[DSC]

If I recall correctly - the rebuild for much of the main King Street street car tracks and roadway is scheduled for 2023. If that is correct, and at the rate the King / Queen / Roncesvalles intersection project is going, the projects may merge seamlessly from one into the other, resulting in an uninterrupted multi-year interruption to the 504 King car service....

Yes, the King trackwork WAS scheduled for 2023 but it no longer shows in T.O.InView and seems to have moved to 2024 - probably because Adelaide is now being done in 2023 in preparation for the Queen diversion work for the Ontario Line. I think King will have a year or more of use before it gets interrupted again for the new track downtown - of course, as the King track was laid about 20 years ago with the (then) new improved design, the base concrete and metal 'ties' do not need to be replaced so, in theory it should not be a very long job. (Well, one can hope!)

 

[Amare]

So in short, anyone who lives west of Roncesvalles traveling via transit wont be able to get into/out of the downtown core in a timely manner unless they take the GO Train or Bloor-Danforth line until...um 2031?

Watermain and Track work is still showing up on King Street West in the city construction pipeline for 2023 btw.

What a beautiful city we live in.

 

[Towered]

So in short, anyone who lives west of Roncesvalles traveling via transit wont be able to get into/out of the downtown core in a timely manner unless they take the GO Train or Bloor-Danforth line until...um 2031?

Watermain and Track work is still showing up on King Street West in the city construction pipeline for 2023 btw.

What a beautiful city we live in.

Well those poor commuters can simply take the shiny new Waterfront LRT instead that was built on schedule back in...

Oh, wait.

 

[Steve Munro]

Yes, the King trackwork WAS scheduled for 2023 but it no longer shows in T.O.InView and seems to have moved to 2024 - probably because Adelaide is now being done in 2023 in preparation for the Queen diversion work for the Ontario Line. I think King will have a year or more of use before it gets interrupted again for the new track downtown - of course, as the King track was laid about 20 years ago with the (then) new improved design, the base concrete and metal 'ties' do not need to be replaced so, in theory it should not be a very long job. (Well, one can hope!)

Tender calls for track work specify whether they require complete excavation or only the top layer. Recent tenders show full excavation for the intersections of Church & Carlton, and King & Shaw, but only top layer excavation for the coming College Street project. Queen was done largely top layer only except at special work and cases where excavation for Toronto Water were needed. The Queensway is full excavation. We have not been long enough in the cycle of special work replacement to hit an intersection that has "new" panel track and should only require top layer work, but that will come. There is almost no tangent track left that was built "the old way".

 

[drum118]

May 23
Finally getting caught up, but still behind from where I should be. More up on site.

 

[kotsy]

May 23
Finally getting caught up, but still behind from where I should be. More up on site.

Something I noticed when walking by the site a few days ago is all the TTC poles in the middle of the sidewalk on the south side of King. Could they not have put them in the grassy area and had a clear sidewalk completely free of obstructions?

 

[DSC]

 

[crs1026]

Good to see, and I hope the next phase runs smoothly.

I sure hope that the track renewal on Lakeshore Blvd also proceeds quickly, so we can have streetcars running all the way to Long Branch again soon.

Has the TTC ever published an actual figure for the number of buses that it must retain in its fleet solely to protect against streetcar closures? Here we are buying additional streetcars that may sit idle, while possibly maintaining a parallel bus fleet because roadwork and trackwork causes too many lengthy streetcar outages. Seems like a very avoidable cost if the city gave priority to better coordination and management of roadwork.

- Paul

 

[Amare]

^Seconded on Paul's note regarding track renewal on Lake Shore. From what I've seen, it looks like they are making good work on the Mimico track replacement, and the Kipling intersection reconstruction started "on schedule" yesterday.

The real question is when will work be completed on The Queensway from Sunnyside to Parkside. I highly doubt we're seeing any streetcar service along the full stretch of the 501 until early 2023, which in turn wont last long and will likely be bustituted yet again for the Ontario Line construction.

I'm not sure of the # of buses the TTC retains for streetcar closures per se, but the TTC has spread out the delivery of the new 60 cars because of the reduced vehicle needs while various forms of construction takes place on streetcar routes across the city. That and due to the reconstruction of Hillcrest/Harvey, as well as Russell Yard.

 

[reaperexpress]

Has the TTC ever published an actual figure for the number of buses that it must retain in its fleet solely to protect against streetcar closures? Here we are buying additional streetcars that may sit idle, while possibly maintaining a parallel bus fleet because roadwork and trackwork causes too many lengthy streetcar outages. Seems like a very avoidable cost if the city gave priority to better coordination and management of roadwork.

I don't know if the TTC has published this specific number, but you can calculate a ballpark number of extra buses and displaced streetcars using the Service Summaries which @Steve Munro has archived. You can compare the number of buses assigned to a streetcar route to the number of streetcars assigned to that route in a previous board period while streetcars where running. You can also sum up the total number of buses assigned to streetcar routes per board period. From my experience, they do try to rotate the closures around to keep the number of buses on streetcar routes relatively steady. There is a shortage of streetcars anyway, because the order of 203 streetcars was based on the travel times before the TTC padded the heck out of all the schedules. It now takes a lot more vehicles to maintain a given scheduled frequency/capacity than it did a decade ago.

 

[innsertnamehere]

I'm still annoyed they didn't take the chance to build a dedicated left turn lane for King St westbound onto the Queensway.. Would have saved so much wasted time for 504 cars trying to get onto Roncesvalles.