Toronto 2150 Lake Shore | 215.75m | 67s | First Capital | Allies and Morrison

Full Metal Junkie said:
Humber Bay Shores - The Morning Rush Hour Horror Show
an investigative report by FMJ
(brace yourselves)

All photos were taken between 8:18 and 8:30 am on this fine Wednesday morning

Lake Shore, the entire stretch between Park Lawn and Humber river. Two cars are going westbound, a steady flow going eastbound (note the spacing between the cars on Lake Shore vs. Gardiner):
View attachment 228016




Looking north onto Park Lawn in the direction of the left turn onto the westbound Gardiner. One or two cars are headed that way in the distance:
View attachment 228017


Please refer to the above photo for all the bike lane markings. They must have used invisible paint ?‍♂️


Looking east from the Esso station towards Palace Pier. The time is 8:27 am. A bus and less than a dozen cars are waiting for the light.
View attachment 228019
Just 2 cars are stuck in the right turn lane due to pedestrians the next minute:
View attachment 228021




The above mentioned total gong show:
View attachment 228023
View attachment 228020


~20 cars are stuck in "traffic" (waiting for the light to turn green). About as bad as I've ever seen this intersection:
View attachment 228022
(in case you were worried, all the cars and the bus made it past the lights once they turned green)


Naturally, with all this congestion on the major thoroughfares, all the local roads are backed up too:
View attachment 228024

Marine Parade is a bumper-to-bumper all the way from Palace Pier to Park Lawn:
View attachment 228025
View attachment 228026


But enough with the pictures. I could have just photoshopped all the cars out of the photos. Right?

I present to you the next line of evidence. I didn't know this until yesterday, but you can actually see the typical average traffic conditions on Google Maps at any given time on any given day of the week. And if you ever used Google Maps for navigation, you know how solid the quality of their traffic metadata is. So I played around with the sliders and it turns out the traffic in Humber Bay Shores is, in fact, at its worst between 8 am and 8:30 am. So let's take a few hypothetical trips around the area using Google's average rush hour traffic data.

The rush hour travel times between Palace Pier and the Gardiner on/off-ramps, going either way. Compared with the traffic-free travel times on a Saturday morning:
View attachment 228037


So what the people of Humber Bay Shores are really complaining about is that during the peak of the rush hour, their travel times increase by anywhere between one/two minutes on the low end and the whopping 4 minutes on the high end! Oh, the hummanity!! :eek:

Humber Bay rush hour traffic vs. the rest of the city:
View attachment 228039


So now you know what sort of traffic nightmare people from this area are complaining about. I would like to argue that Humber Bay Shores does not suffer from a traffic problem, it suffers from the high density of entitled crybabies.

I rest my case.
Click to expand...

Amazing post.

I think the issue is that there is no "true" definition on what constitutes traffic. So people quantify as waiting 4 mins as "heavy traffic". I'm new to the area, having lived here less than a year now, however I would say the traffic in this neighbourhood is much, MUCH better/preferable to traffic I've experienced elsewhere. I would not classify the area as congested by any degree. However, I am also cognizant of the fact that adding a greater density of people to the area with this project should involve some brainstorming for transit as well. Overall, I believe the proposal should keep traffic very manageable.
 
Allies and Morrison Team certainly has created many modern regeneration projects such as King's Cross in London but the community need here is more nature inspired space not concrete jungle. All these towers are too close in proximity to each other and with many future pandemics in the horizon you will need to re-strategies how the flow of people and traffic must be considered in emergency situations.
 
ParklawnGroup said:
Allies and Morrison Team certainly has created many modern regeneration projects such as King's Cross in London but the community need here is more nature inspired space not concrete jungle. All these towers are too close in proximity to each other and with many future pandemics in the horizon you will need to re-strategies how the flow of people and traffic must be considered in emergency situations.
Click to expand...
More nature inspired space? Along the southeast side of the area are the expansive Humber Bay parks. To the west, parkland along the Mimico Creek is being improved. The site itself will have some new parkland. This is one of the least nature-starved places in the central city, so I don't think your argument is going to go particularly far.

42
 
2150 LAKE SHORE BLVD W
Ward 03 - Etob. York District​
​

Proposed Use ---​
# of Storeys ---​
# of Units ---​
Type​
Number​
Date Submitted​
Status​
Applications:​
Subdivision Approval​
20 146496 WET 03 SB​
May 19, 2020​
Application Received​
OPA & Rezoning​
20 146488 WET 03 OZ​
May 19, 2020​
Application Received​
 
There have been new applications on the Dev App site since May 12:

1589991454069.png
 
The city has been accepting site plan applications, but not rezonings. You'll notice that other than this one and a technical rezoning for the UTSC Student res (lifting of the H), they are all SPA only.
 
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2150 LAKE SHORE BLVD W
Ward 03 - Etob. York District​
▼View All Properties

2150 LAKE SHORE BLVD W​
2194 LAKE SHORE BLVD W​
23 PARK LAWN RD​
​


Draft Plan of Subdivision in order to establish development blocks and new streets (a total of 9 blocks).
Proposed Use ---​
# of Storeys ---​
# of Units ---​
Type​
Number​
Date Submitted​
Status​
Applications:​
Subdivision Approval​
20 146496 WET 03 SB​
May 19, 2020​
Under Review​
OPA & Rezoning​
20 146488 WET 03 OZ​
May 19, 2020​
Under Review​
 
67Cup said:
I see that the covering letter in the documentation mentions “the possible inclusion of two elementary schools.” That pleases me as an area resident. I hope “possible” becomes “definite.”
Click to expand...

fyi

the schools will be at the bottom of the buildings behind the park... expected to be 1 catholic and 1 TDSB school

it's in the first planning rationale document (as well as with pics! lots of new stuff to look at)

the park itself has doubled in size as well... possibly at the expense of a bit of the entertainment district

office size has been increased by 50%
 
The total page count of just the two Planning Rationale documents is 540 pages. The paperwork submitted here is incredible, (and I pronounced the the Spanish way even though there's no d in the Spanish version of the word).

42
 
also it would appear a lot of buildings are smaller now

some at the back are bigger but the ones that were closer to lakeshore/parklawn are now a bit smaller (mostly to make sun coverage of the new park work)

still some really big buildings in there but it's not as omg it's a city type of density

i think there's like 2 less private roads too, one got merged into the park and one is now just strictly pedestrian only (to allow TTC buses to board on park lawn)

some shuffling with the transit square too, looks like it might be closer to the edge of the lot to kind of consolidate the LRT/GO train loading
 
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For someone who knows more about this project than myself - is the City/TTC planning to move the Humber loop to this development? I ask, because in my opinion it's the lowest hanging fruit to improve transit in Humber Bay Shores.

Anecdotally, last time when I visited the city, just before the COVID situation, I must have been waiting around 30-45 minutes for a streetcar just to take me from Park Lawn to Humber Loop, then another 5 or 10 minute wait. I can't imagine having to make that transfer daily, especially in the cold winter months, so moving the Humber Loop a few blocks further west to eliminate that seems like an obvious improvement.
 
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