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Toronto Crosstown LRT | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | Arcadis

steveintoronto said:
Indeed. Toronto is a relic in many respects:
Six Freeway Removals That Changed Their Cities Forever - Gizmodo
Highway Removal – Streetsblog New York City
Removing Freeways - Restoring Cities - Preservation Institute

From the latter link above:
New York, NY
West Side Highway

New York’s West Side Highway was the first elevated highway to be built, with construction beginning in the 1920s. And it was the first elevated highway to collapse, decaying so badly that it had to be closed permanently in the 1970s.

When the West Side Highway was closed in 1973, 53 percent of the traffic that had used this highway disappeared, dramatic proof that building freeways generates traffic and that removing freeways reduces traffic. Yet there was tremendous pressure to replace this highway with a bigger and better freeway named Westway.

The plan was defeated after a David versus Goliath struggle that lasted for more than a decade, with a group of west-side residents, community boards, and environmentalists fighting the entire New York political establishment, including New York city’s mayor and New York state’s governor and two senators.

Now, there is a park, pedestrian promenade, and bicycle path along the Hudson River on Manhattan’s west side - public places that are real amenities for Manhattan on land that used to be blighted by an elevated freeway.
[...]

Prequel to Toronto? Portends what could/should happen here? Not at this rate...
Click to expand...

well from reading the articles theres a general trend for those examples. They either:
a. had a huge disaster that catalysed and justified the demolition
b. they did it decades ago when construction was much cheaper and they could dictate the terms of development instead of the opposite these days
c. they have a network of supporting transit and/or connecting routes that could act as a viable alternative

unfortunately for our decaying city, weve had/have none of these conditions that would make removing highway infrastructure realistic in the next foreseeable future. until any of those 3 items
occur in our city, dont hold your breath for anything dramatic in our lifetimes.
 
sixrings said:
Actually the allen is faster. My wife and I use it daily. At least it's better than dufferin.
Click to expand...

Yea, I live in the area and I always use Allen Road because it is faster. The issue is that you have so many conflict points at Eglinton/Allen between Buses turning into and out of the station as well as traffic turning on and off the Allen. I can't even remember how it was like before construction, I'm interested to see if the construction will have some sort of long-lasting effect on dispersing traffic away from the corridor.

I think another issue is that there's no HWY 401 access to Bathurst from/to WB which forces a bunch of people to have to use Allen. Sure you can close down Allen and force them off at Dufferin and then make the entire Yorkdale area an even more massive mess than it already is. The entire Allen road corridor needs to be coupled into a secondary master plan between Caledonia, Bathurst, Hwy 401 and Rogers Road to come up with a real solution. A lot of the minor collectors in the area just don't have the capacity to assume more traffic, you have Marlee Avenue, Caledonia, Castlefield, and Glencairn that are all one lane in either direction. Not to mention the only roads that cross Eglinton straight without a jog are Dufferin (geometry not ideal), Caledonia (geometry not ideal), and Bathurst. Okawood and Marlee both end in a 'T' at Eglinton adding more traffic onto Eglinton. Not to mention it's nearly impossible to get onto Vaughan Road from Dufferin due to all the one-way streets and restrictions in the adjacent neighbourhoods. This forces a bunch of traffic onto Eglinton around Allen Road that could otherwise by-pass the area.

The area is actually setup quite well for east-west traffic with frequent crossings over Allen Road, but not very good for north-south traffic with Eglinton and the neighbourhood restrictions in the adjacent neighbourhoods being the main culprit.
 
I can't recall if there is a specific thread for the Crosstown West extension so apologies if this should be somewhere else.

The MPP for Etobicoke Centre posted a statement on October 10, 2017 stating he's asking Metrolinx and the City to "tunnel" the LRT.
 
Allandale25 said:
The MPP for Etobicoke Centre posted a statement on October 10, 2017 stating he's asking Metrolinx and the City to "tunnel" the LRT.
Click to expand...

For all the same dumb reasons that we've been hearing since the Ford era:


Tunneling the LRT makes sense for many reasons
  • Tunnelling the LRT is better for drivers. Eglinton Avenue is already gridlocked. It's a major artery in Etobicoke. An at-grade, (meaning on the surface of the road) LRT would make traffic worse.
  • Tunnelling the LRT is better for transit riders. We need to get Toronto moving. The right LRT plan will get people where they need to go when they need to be there. A tunneled LRT would not be slowed by traffic or stop lights and move more quickly.
  • Tunneling the LRT is better for taxpayers. To keep Etobicoke’s economy growing, we need to keep Eglinton moving. Tunneling the LRT would keep people, goods, and services flowing between Toronto, Pearson Airport, Mississauga and the entire region. Tunneling would also reduce long-term maintenance and upkeep costs.
  • Tunneling the LRT is safer for Etobicoke. Eglinton Avenue is gridlocked. The traffic spills over on local residential streets used by commuters as a shortcut. A tunneled LRT would reduce safety concerns.
 
Allandale25 said:
I can't recall if there is a specific thread for the Crosstown West extension so apologies if this should be somewhere else.

The MPP for Etobicoke Centre posted a statement on October 10, 2017 stating he's asking Metrolinx and the City to "tunnel" the LRT.
Click to expand...

There really has been no report update since 2016. What was last discussed was possible grade separations, but nothing was updated or even decided. See link.

egwest_gradeseparations.jpg


Likely will have to be incorporated with the Pearson Transit Hub. See link.
 
W. K. Lis said:
There really has been no report update since 2016. What was last discussed was possible grade separations, but nothing was updated or even decided. See link.

egwest_gradeseparations.jpg


Likely will have to be incorporated with the Pearson Transit Hub. See link.
Click to expand...

Has it really been since June 2016 since we last had an update? Is anyone even working on this project anymore? :eek:
 
salsa said:
For all the same dumb reasons that we've been hearing since the Ford era:


Tunneling the LRT makes sense for many reasons
  • Tunnelling the LRT is better for drivers. Eglinton Avenue is already gridlocked. It's a major artery in Etobicoke. An at-grade, (meaning on the surface of the road) LRT would make traffic worse.
  • Tunnelling the LRT is better for transit riders. We need to get Toronto moving. The right LRT plan will get people where they need to go when they need to be there. A tunneled LRT would not be slowed by traffic or stop lights and move more quickly.
  • Tunneling the LRT is better for taxpayers. To keep Etobicoke’s economy growing, we need to keep Eglinton moving. Tunneling the LRT would keep people, goods, and services flowing between Toronto, Pearson Airport, Mississauga and the entire region. Tunneling would also reduce long-term maintenance and upkeep costs.
  • Tunneling the LRT is safer for Etobicoke. Eglinton Avenue is gridlocked. The traffic spills over on local residential streets used by commuters as a shortcut. A tunneled LRT would reduce safety concerns.
Click to expand...
Another politician pretending he knows about transit. When's the last time he was even in his ward, because if he was there he would know all 4 of his statements are blatant lies.

The problem is that his constituents will eat it up since the residents where the LRT would travel through drive and dont take public transit.
 
Tunneling under Eglinton West in Etobicoke would be dumb indeed. The corridor is wide and can easily accommodate surface / elevated LRT with enough room left for the traffic lanes.

The reason Eglinton West in Etobicoke is congested isn't that it has too few traffic lanes. The reason is that the areas those cars are going to do not have capacity to let them in.

It makes sense to build the Eglinton West LRT section to higher standard than a no-frills light rail line. This line will connect to the Pearson terminals and the Airport employment area; a large percentage of riders will travel end-to-end rather than to minor stops in between, and will benefit from a good speed.

However, that doesn't need to cost as much as a full tunnel would. Some sections will be perfectly fine with a street level LRT, and some can be elevated over intersections. Wider stop spacing with parallel local bus service is appropriate, and the same bus route can continue east of Mt Dennis all the way to Yonge.
 
W. K. Lis said:
There really has been no report update since 2016. What was last discussed was possible grade separations, but nothing was updated or even decided. See link.
Click to expand...

Any sense of what it would cost to tunnel this portion? Did previous studies or reports estimate costs?
 
I'm told that the all tunnel option is coming up again because the traffic studies which were commissioned in the last Council transit debate are looking like they will justify duckunders/duckovers at several intersections along the extension. The debate is, is it better to have the transit line continually changing elevation, or just be built all at one elevation.
This reality has always been there. If you go back to the old traffic studies in the original ECLRT EA, they painted a negative impact for left turns especially at several intersections. Those findings were kind of swept under the carpet when the EA was written up, and with McGuinty cutting the line back to Mt Dennis the issue became moot.
The interesting thing is that I have recently heard people who are involved in residents' associations out that way debating about an elevated alternative. These folks arent transit geeks per se and would only be commenting on that idea if somebody they were talking to proposed it. Anyways, the next reportback to Council will happen once the Waterfront report has been dealt with. We may have data to look at before too long.

- Paul
 
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