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Rail Deck Park (?, ?, ?)

44 North said:
Also for a one-phase big U DRL from Rexdale / Weston in the west to the Peanut / l'amoreux / Consumers in the east - perhaps with branches to the Ex and future Port Lands.
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**drool** Fantasy Map time. I wanna see what the Ex and Portland branches look like.

But I could be downtown from Gerrard Sq in about 9 mins to King. This rocks! Will rock. Er, could rock. Damn.
 
steveintoronto said:
As Von Münchhausen as it sounds (and it is) clarification on the ownership of air rights alone will change the approach to adjacent zoning and planning. From all I can gather, the City owns almost, if not all, the land and the air-rights above and land underneath. The railways have lease rights, not ownership. Some of the sale of Union Station property to Metrolinx might be an exception, but the City's statutory claim is via the Province anyway with the agreement of the Parliament of Canada.

There's going to be some very disappointed 'jump-ups' when this is clarified.
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With the Rail Deck I didn't have my hopes that high to begin with. The idea came out of nowhere and is now all the rage. I think there will be some park space (or private POPS), but the majority of 'new' land will go to development. In a way I see it as a continuation/reactivation of the old "Metro Centre" plans. This isn't bad, considering what would be built today will no doubt be way better than those plans.

It's a good point about USRC's ownership, leasing, and other gov't involvement. Could be convoluted like the waterfront plans. TTR, TC, TPA/PT, TPLC, WT, CoT, Mlinx, Prov, Feds...etc.

TransitBart said:
**drool** Fantasy Map time. I wanna see what the Ex and Portland branches look like.

But I could be downtown from Gerrard Sq in about 9 mins to King. This rocks! Will rock. Er, could rock. Damn.
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With a spur to the Ex one doesn't even need to rely on a Fantasy map. Although the 1985 DRL west of Spadina was never studied in detail, there were some ideas kicked around for that phase - a couple of which involved options for either a spur or a mainline to the Ex grounds. Notice how the mainline is like a mirror image of the current Eastern-Queen alignment.

A spur to the Ex would definitely have merit today considering the crowds, but another similar idea may be to bring a spur to Humber Bay. With everyone gung ho about $500M/km subways to ultra auto-centric industrial lots and big box stores, it's easy to forget that there are actual developing communities starved for a rapid transit connection.

DRL_Queen-King_Exhibition-spur-mainline_1984.jpg
 

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Avenue said:
I'm always fascinated by the odd ambitions in this city. When it comes to public spaces, they can't even maintain the Toronto sign at the Nathan Phillips Square but they are talking about building this? Just very confusing.
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Current deficiencies regarding parks notwithstanding, I see nothing wrong with keeping an eye on and planning for the end goal of having at least a part of the rail corridor as park space.

AoD
 
steveintoronto said:
That remains the massive elephant in the room over the tracks.

I've been clicking all the links, can't find any "report".
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Only counsel and upper management for the City, Metrolinx, CN, TTR and any other interested parties are going to be privy to the juicy stuff. At least until there's some agreement in place. I think it's going to be in the dark for the forseeable future, until then we can only rely on a city webpage to remind us that there is a dream.
 
DonValleyRainbow said:
Only counsel and upper management for the City, Metrolinx, CN, TTR and any other interested parties are going to be privy to the juicy stuff. At least until there's some agreement in place. I think it's going to be in the dark for the forseeable future, until then we can only rely on a city webpage to remind us that there is a dream.
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Months back I posted the results of what I researched *appearing* to show (only later Acts of Parliament or court interpretations could change it) that the City *continues to own* the corridor along what used to be The Esplanade (only part of which is left as a street today). If that is the case, look for massive court battles to erupt as the City takes back claim to those air-rights, let alone ground rights. From my reading, the railways were granted "leases" not ownership, of the Union Station Corridor.

From memory (I'll try and re-find my extensive digging on this a year ago, never had success using the on-site search function here)(I'm spoiled by Google with much more adaptive search algorithms) private land owners each side of the corridor were granted the right to bridge from one land parcel across the corridor to the other, within the terms of the then version of the Railway Act. That might be a slight complication although the general outcome should still be that the City has almost unfettered access to claim a massive swath of air rights.

Last I read, it would take approx a year of legal searching and discussion for the City to state a public position on this. I thought perhaps this was the announcement from their Legal Dep't on exactly that.

We do get a nice picture to look at and get distracted from all the other real issues, however.

If anyone wants to search this string for what I linked and posted prior, the tags "Tri-partite Agreement" (perhaps spelled without the hyphen) and "Esplanade" should show the relevant paragraphs, the legal ones from a provincial statutes record book I had to use screen capture to quote. The province, as is the protocol still, had to barter with the Federal Gov't and Parliament on the City's behalf to establish the law on the matter.

Edit to Add: Somehow I had the sense of mind to copy this into my email records, since I'd sent off much of what I'd found to solicitor friends for comment (their replies were almost all of the opinion it would take court action to re-establish what appears to be on the books, the question really being "in which court?") but here's the major reference, and there's pages on this, so bracket both sides of this link to find the complete relevant section:
https://books.google.ca/books?id=BupHAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA572&lpg=PA572&dq=Esplanade+or+Tripartite+Agreement&source=bl&ots=1q9Pyh4ENJ&sig=B_54nS2NfC0ZCshhgm5qZje8RhQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjzrZ2slM7PAhWo34MKHRFMD7cQ6AEIKDAC#v=onepage&q=Esplanade or Tripartite Agreement&f=false

There was at least one major test of this (these) statute(s) in the courts (SCC IIRC) that confirmed the City's case on this, back in the Twenties I believe. Again, searching this string for what I posted almost a year back will show that all detailed and linked.

I'll continue searching my email records.

See Pg 32 + of this string for more reference

And here's the Supreme Court Case examining the law on the matter, I was off by a decade, but close:

upload_2017-4-25_16-27-13.png

https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/9855/1/document.do

That's the first page of a 78 page written decision!

THAT is what one would hope the mindless little minions at City Hall would be examining and making a statement on.

In the event (and pardon my becoming subjective on this) I think it's beyond them. And they should realize that and retain genuine counsel to examine.

But I digress....
 

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Was digging through the new website, and didn't find any new renderings, but found something interesting in this picture:

Rail%20Deck%20Park%20vision_Page_3.jpg


specifically this:

rTa4ERZ.jpg


I know this is still early, and that this picture is probably more of a placeholder, but I don't like the idea of extending roads through the future park as implied by the white dash lines. Parks are for people, not cars!
 
alexanderglista said:
I don't like the idea of extending roads through the future park as implied by the white dash lines. Parks are for people, not cars!
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Some roads are necessary so that the bigger arterials don't turn into congested highways - which they already are. I mean motorized vehicles have a place in our economy and are not the devil. It's not like cars are the only things that use roads.
 
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