Re-routing rail away from Don River -- what can be done to open up Don River Valley Park?

[Northern Light]

While there are some interesting and commendable ideas in this report.

There is much that feels half baked.

Rail issues aside, the 'Canal District appears to be entirely within the flood plain w/no suggestion as to how that would be addressed.

I also see some suggestions such as 'concert venue' in the middle of would-be natural area that don't thrill me; nor may I add, purely as a concert goer would I want the lovely drone of the DVP and a high-frequency rail corridor in the background.

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The do-able stuff in here, involves removing the cloverleaf@Bayview (though I always thought that this could be reconfigured to allow a Bayview bus to run to Castle Frank Stn instead of trying to turn @ the Brickworks.

Enhancing the current river crossings.

Shifting the track alignment from where Belleville crosses now, to just north of Pottery Road looks feasible, though not cheap; but no more expensive that grade-separating the existing Pottery Rd. crossing, so workable.

Removing the City salt depot and renaturalizing that space.

Improving Bayview as a mixed-mode corridor for pedestrians/cyclists, including a protected all-weather exist @ Bloor.

 

[44 North]

It's an expensive engineering project to alter those supports, but how difficult? How much would it cost? Is there enough bridge height on this corridor to allow electrification? If not then many of these bridges would need reworking for electrification some day anyway.

For the current corridor, I believe electrification was promised - along with realignment. Then it was AD2W using the same corridor. Now? It seems to be little to no improvements indefinitely (while other corridors which were to receive minimal improvements or AD2W get upgraded to RER/electrification). Hard to know what Metrolinx has planned. Seems McWynnety will have them rush reports on a bunch of vote-winning projects. Then once the vote is won, reality sets in and many projects get scaled-back or dropped. Then a new election comes along (with newer, bigger, and better promises made). I don't have much faith in Mlinx, and kinda view them as the Prov Lib's closed-door tool to gain seats...but I digress.

Re: this issue of rail in the Lower Don. My personal preference is to remove all rail off the valley floor, and/or configure or interline the RH line with the DRL somehow. Not sure exactly how. But the RH line has a lot of potential and underutilized value, there are abandoned rail lines that can be put to use (and were proposed as such since the 80s, in GO2020, and the Big Move); and flooding has always been a known issue for GO (tho recently appears to be happening with increasing frequency/severity). So this fix may involve new structures to elevate above the valley floor, or to use Broadview Stn to intersect Line 2. And perhaps cannibalizing parts of the northern portion of the Mlinx-owned Belleville Sub, use of the CP switching yard @ Thorncliffe, poss reactivation of the Leaside Spur, and maybe incorporation with evolving plans for a Leslie St-Redway Rd Extension.

Perhaps a combined DRL and RH line could share certain sections like the Queen tunnel, with the two deviating and rejoining at different points. Or the two could follow the same route along Queen and up Pape/Don Mills to Lawrence. I forget which recent DRL report it was in, but attached to it was another report by the Ont Soc of Prof Engineers that made it clear their belief that the DRL should use a bridge to cross the Lower Don (though they weren't specific as to where/how this would work). As well, Metrolinx still hasn't presented their shortlisted DRL plan yet, nor have they officially endorsed the City/TTC shortlisted DRL.

TL;DR - I think it's possible we may see some kind of RH/DRL hybrid that can work in everybody's favour - including those behind this River Ribbon plan.

While there are some interesting and commendable ideas in this report.

There is much that feels half baked.

Rail issues aside, the 'Canal District appears to be entirely within the flood plain w/no suggestion as to how that would be addressed.

I also see some suggestions such as 'concert venue' in the middle of would-be natural area that don't thrill me; nor may I add, purely as a concert goer would I want the lovely drone of the DVP and a high-frequency rail corridor in the background.

Agreed, that "Canal District" doesn't make much sense. It looks to have all these E/W dead-end streets (which are above the floodplain) somehow come down and intersect with Bayview Ave. 1) I don't think that can be done; and 2) even if it could be I don't think it'd be a good idea (considering the issue of flooding). And there actually are many large development proposals between River-Bayview and Queen-Gerrard moving through the pipeline, none of which include plans to connect with Bayview.

 

[DonValleyRainbow]

The ideas here are fantastic, but I can't get past how little room is left for Richmond Hill line. South of Wellesley, there is no room; any re-alignment would require significant structures that would be costly and potentially impact the Don River. Furthermore, it proposes re-aligning it parallel to the DVP, northeast past the Bayview trestle to...where? Wherever it goes from there will also require significant works that could be, again, costly and impact the natural environment. Let's also not forget that GO is not the only user: this is the way for VIA's The Canadian.

I agree with Northern Light's characterization; it seems half-baked. It seems moving rail lines out of the way was just for the convenience of trails and parkland, and the impacts of doing that were not fully considered.

 

[crs1026]

I agree with Northern Light's characterization; it seems half-baked. It seems moving rail lines out of the way was just for the convenience of trails and parkland, and the impacts of doing that were not fully considered.

I have a hard time buying into something that feels like putting lipstick on a pig. The ideas for improving the public spaces in the valley are all great. But at the end of the day, it's going to be a valley with very busy and noisy roads in it. The renderings which show such pretty spaces right next to Bayview Avenue are an example of this.

Moving the rail lines only makes sense if they end up totally out of the floodplain. I cant be sure from the document that this is so.

I support improving the valley to make it a better resource - but this proposal feels overly optimistic about how well it will turn out.

- Paul

 

[ksun]

I have a hard time buying into something that feels like putting lipstick on a pig. The ideas for improving the public spaces in the valley are all great. But at the end of the day, it's going to be a valley with very busy and noisy roads in it. The renderings which show such pretty spaces right next to Bayview Avenue are an example of this.

Moving the rail lines only makes sense if they end up totally out of the floodplain. I cant be sure from the document that this is so.

I support improving the valley to make it a better resource - but this proposal feels overly optimistic about how well it will turn out.

- Paul

Exactly. This valley will never be that great and enjoyable as long as the parkway and rapid moving cars are nearby. It is like Queen's park is never that enjoyable because of the same reason.

 

[ponyboy]

Exactly. This valley will never be that great and enjoyable as long as the parkway and rapid moving cars are nearby. It is like Queen's park is never that enjoyable because of the same reason.

I agree that noise is a problem, but the valley is wide and state-of-the-art 20-foot sound walls can do a lot of good. There are places in the valley 50m+ away from the DVP where it isn't bad, and it can be improved a lot. Noise from Bayview can also be reduced with 4-foot walls. Queens park will never have noise walls. I grew up near the I-95 corridor in Palm Beach Gardens, in South Florida, and since substantial sound walls were added 20 years ago, it is a dramatic improvement for people living along, so I don't think we should give up here. It isn't lipstick on a pig.

 

[salsa]

I agree that noise is a problem, but the valley is wide and state-of-the-art 20-foot sound walls can do a lot of good. There are places in the valley 50m+ away from the DVP where it isn't bad, and it can be improved a lot. Noise from Bayview can also be reduced with 4-foot walls. Queens park will never have noise walls. I grew up near the I-95 corridor in Palm Beach Gardens, in South Florida, and since substantial sound walls were added 20 years ago, it is a dramatic improvement for people living along, so I don't think we should give up here. It isn't lipstick on a pig.

If noise walls in the Don Valley are necessary, they should opt for something like this instead of the typical ugly ones.

 

[crs1026]

I am pasting in these images from the Ryerson document. The first appears to look northwards portraying the lower Don north of Queen Street. The second is a southbound view where River joins lower Bayview.

One reality is that wherever the tracks end up, they will need to be completely fenced off with no potential for pedestrian access. No one will be walking their dog on the tracks between 15-minute RER movements! They may be electrified before long, too.

Similarly, no one would seriously propose reducing Bayview to two lanes and implementing a small number of pull-off parking spaces on that road. I don't see any sound walls separating the renaturalised areas from the DVP on the other side of the river. How peaceful would it be if the current 4-lane, fast-moving version of Bayview remains?

I appreciate that these views are conceptual, but you can see the gap between intent and what reality will be. This is fantasy, not creativity.

- Paul

 

[ponyboy]

no one would seriously propose reducing Bayview to two lanes and implementing a small number of pull-off parking spaces on that road

Why not 2-3 lanes for Bayview under this scheme? South of Bloor, I think Bayview should be de-emphasized as a quick way to get south. People can use the DVP for quick access downtown, and they can use Jarvis for quick north-south access a few blocks east. If the river was really opened up, to make it less scary for pedestrians, I think a median should be added, traffic lights and crosswalks should be added and on-street parking added so people using cars can access the River and recreational places in the area. Why keep Bayview a speedway if we were to open up the river to people on foot?

Rather than direct entry on-street parking, perhaps something like this can be added to make entering/exiting safer.

 

[ponyboy]

they will need to be completely fenced off with no potential for pedestrian access. No one will be walking their dog on the tracks between 15-minute RER movements! They may be electrified before long, too.

I think that render of the guy with the dog on the tracks is suggesting that the tracks on the west bank of the river will become a trail. However, the renders do leave out details, like not showing the train on the east side instead, and not showing what would be substantial sound walls. As some have suggested, interlining the RH line with the DRL, and working something out with CN, might be best because we could remove all rail from the valley.

As you can probably tell, this proposal has captured my imagination, but I am also a realist, so I graciously defer to the wisdom of others on this forum. I would love for something amazing like this to be done in our lifetimes.

 

[muller877]

The do-able stuff in here, involves removing the cloverleaf@Bayview (though I always thought that this could be reconfigured to allow a Bayview bus to run to Castle Frank Stn instead of trying to turn @ the Brickworks.

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fyi...is not removing the cloverleaf...from the pdf it's a complete removal of the DVP on/off ramps (page 20 for a diagram...green roads mean removing them)

http://www.ryerson.ca/content/dam/surp/news/news/General_Public/FINAL DRAFT_PEOPLES PLAN.pdf

From the initial read I thought is was just eliminating the cloverleaf and creating an intersection. But its creating a 8 km stretch of the DVP without an off-ramp. Great in case of accidents we can just trap 8 km of cars on a road for hours.

Brillance! We'll divert traffic through a residential neighbourhood along Don Mills and O'Connor instead

 

[muller877]

Why not 2-3 lanes for Bayview under this scheme? South of Bloor, I think Bayview should be de-emphasized as a quick way to get south. People can use the DVP for quick access downtown, and they can use Jarvis for quick north-south access a few blocks east.

The city has forced people onto Bayview by prohibiting turns into Leaside.

And the Bloor/Bayview DVP ramp is CLOSED under their proposal. So there will be in fact more traffic along Bayview.

 

[crs1026]

Rearranging traffic patterns on major arterial roads is something you study carefully first..... it's not something to just pop into a concept.

I would love to see something good come out of this. I'm not optimistic that we can make cars go away however - especially with development on the Lever land and along the east waterfront coming. Transit will keep traffic from growing but that's all.

It's unfortunate to see the Don sacrificed for roadways. The good thing is, we were smart enough to not go ahead with the Spadina and Crosstown expressways. Imagine how much less green space we would have if they had gone ahead.

- Paul

 

[Johnny Au]

If noise walls in the Don Valley are necessary, they should opt for something like this instead of the typical ugly ones.


View attachment 73558

That idea works really well with Wrigley Field. With those as noise barriers, perhaps it would attract more people to play baseball then.

 

[ponyboy]

And the Bloor/Bayview DVP ramp is CLOSED under their proposal.

They are not eliminating the DVP exit to Bloor, but it's not clear in the report where the new one will be. My guess is they are removing the cloverleaf and putting the exit from the DVP just a bit above Brickworks closer to Pottery Road. This is where the DVP and Bayview are closest together.