Ok, so Metrolinx has wilted in the face of opposition from a few Leslie St. condo dwellers and/or become scared to bring the EA back to City Council for amendment (despite only hours earlier winning approval for the Western EA amendments at Mt. Dennis from the same council.)
But like it or not, what I thought were reasonable changes (and necessary ones) to the Brentcliffe-Don Mills section have been cancelled - for now.
I still say there has to be a way to do this without sticking with the original EA plan which would create a construction and operational nightmare for both LRT's and cars.
So,
would it be fair to say that ideally the vast majority would like to have
a) a Leslie stop
and
b) separate right-of-way for the LRT through to the hub at Don Mills
and
c) the maintenance of the present intersection for car traffic at Leslie and Eglinton to keep traffic flowing and to prevent massive back-ups of cars waiting to turn left from EB Eglinton and SB Leslie?
Constraints are:
1) bridge over West Don River can only accommodate 2 LRT lanes and 4 lanes of traffic.
2) Eglinton under the CPR bridge can only accommodate 2 LRT lanes and 4 lanes of traffic.
3) Celestica access road just east of CPR line must be accessible to all traffic on EB Eglinton.
So here’s what we do:
The LRT portal remains directly east of the new road that is coming down from the Scenic condos but instead of emerging in the centre 2 lanes of Eglinton (as in EA), it emerges in the 2 southernmost lanes. 4 lanes of car traffic to the north.
After going over the West Don bridge the road widens (as it does already now) so there is room for 2 left turn lanes to northbound Leslie from EB Eglinton (just as there is now). Just east of the Leslie intersection the road will pinch in to the same size as in the EA plates, but the Leslie stop will be south of traffic instead of in the middle. The 4 traffic 2 LRT arrangement proceeds under the CPR bridge and over the Celestica access road bridge (which I believe is already 7 lanes wide – not 6 – at present). The Celestica access road is modified slightly so that after it comes under the Eglinton bridge and turns east, instead of immediately splitting into a wye, both directions continue east (parallel and south of the LRT lanes) until east of the Don Mills Station portal. At that point the Celestica access road splits to a wye and merges with Eglinton eastbound (just like now but further east.)
(Pedestrian) access to Leslie stop would be by a pedestrian signal to cross the WB track at the western end of the platform. You could potentially have the pedestrian walkway also cross the EB track to access stairs to the park. The pedestrian signals could be controlled by the trains so pedestrian crossings wouldn’t affect the LRT schedule.
What do you guys think? Everybody wins?
