Having a look at the plans on Sat, a few red flags for me.
Having the diagonal road connecting at both ends will become a main drag and short cut than the current way for traffic. There is talk that the Dupont intersection could be one way only and still under review. Dufferin St will be come 5-6 lanes wide to deal with left hand turning with the sidewalk being shifted to the west. Should widen the east side sidewalk at the same time.
Too many parking spots and needs to be reduce to 50% of less regardless of retail being there.
Have no issues with height and did live across the street next to the fire hall as a kid.
Transit will be a bitch and this bring up the idea that been floating around for decades of having streetcars on Dufferin St in mix traffic. The line would run as phase II from Dupont to Dufferin Gate with Phase I being from Dundas to Queen. When the Dufferin bridge was build, provision was made for tracks in the road that was fill in with asphalt that could be dug out when time came to build the line. Don't think Metrolinx is doing this for the current expansion. Phase III going north of Dupont has to be underground to St Clair due to the grade. Same will happen north of Rogers Rd to North of Eglinton.
The ward councilor is/has/will make a motion to split the 29 route into 3 different routes when the Crosstown Line opens in 2021-22. One route would run from Dupont south to service this development. A 2nd route would run from Eglinton south. The 3rd route would run as is. A possible 4 route would only run north of Eglinton. She also wants the Dupont to be split as well with one route running east from Dufferin St. The plan does call for a transit stop on the diagonal road near the north-south road. One thing the ward councilor as well other councilors need to do, is ride the 29 at various times of the day as well the weekend to understand how the line operates and where are the current bottle neck are. Not going to be cheap splitting routes without adding more service. 29 is a rollercoaster line from end to end with a lot of peaks and valleys along it.
At some point, the City and TTC needs to deal with Dufferin ridership as buses have or about to reach their max point even with artic buses getting down to 90 seconds Headway.
2 things that needs to be be added on the south side and not clear if it been plan for, but there needs to be an out door rink there as well the dirt bike area that are there today. Even a skate board area is needed.
To do some of these things will require the developers kicking in more money for section 37 to get the extra heights.
