Toronto GO Transit: Davenport Diamond Grade Separation | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx

Huh - I didn't know that was there. Doesn't the proposed Barrie line station with Bloor (I've lost track of the status on that) have new tunnels that would replace that?
 
Huh - I didn't know that was there. Doesn't the proposed Barrie line station with Bloor (I've lost track of the status on that) have new tunnels that would replace that?
The station will be on the south side of Bloor. North of Bloor, the tracks will start ramping upwards, so can't have a station there.. The new Paton Rd. underpass will be an at-grade tunnel.
 
I think I posted some of these photos earlier in the thread, but here they are collected on Twitter as well. I've only ever seen the inside of the tunnel via the Tales From The Triangle doc, and by sticking my phone through the cracks to take photos.

When did the tunnel officially close? Judging by the 2009 streetview I'd say early 2000's.
 
It certainly sounds like it was a gritty neighbourhood in the 90s and early 2000s. That was before my time, but I recently stumbled on this article from NOW that captures the vibe in 2000: https://web.archive.org/web/20070602161317/https://nowtoronto.com/issues/2000-09-07/news.html

The strip clubs are still here and there are always characters hanging out outside Happy Cup, but I've never felt unsafe walking around the area.

In the 80's the Paradise Theatre was a porn cinema.........; the infamous Coffee Time at Dupont and Lansdowne was the stuff of legend.......


Street prostitution and drug dealing were not uncommon in the later evening hours..
 
It certainly sounds like it was a gritty neighbourhood in the 90s and early 2000s. That was before my time, but I recently stumbled on this article from NOW that captures the vibe in 2000: https://web.archive.org/web/20070602161317/https://nowtoronto.com/issues/2000-09-07/news.html

The strip clubs are still here and there are always characters hanging out outside Happy Cup, but I've never felt unsafe walking around the area.
Very amusing read. Some of that grit remains intact, but as a former patron of Anarchist's Cocktail, I can confirm that it's not on the same level as 20 years ago...
 
Very amusing read. Some of that grit remains intact, but as a former patron of Anarchist's Cocktail, I can confirm that it's not on the same level as 20 years ago...

Another post by you that confirms my supposition here:


Your kids pretty much have to be goody-goodies, cause they're just never going to out-do Dad's hi-jinx.
 
Another post by you that confirms my supposition here:


Your kids pretty much have to be goody-goodies, cause they're just never going to out-do Dad's hi-jinx.

In my defense, I was always more of a bemused observer rather than impulsive indulger as a young lad traipsing around these gritty locations with regular abandon! I cautiously treated it as voyeuristic tourism in contrast to my incredibly banal suburban Etobian upbringing.

They'll be forced to be more goody-goody simply by circumstance - rampant gentrification has erased much of the "infrastructure" that I had access to in the 90's, or it just moved to much more far-flung areas.
 
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^On yesterday's ride on GO I counted 16 completed pillar pairs, and 4 pairs under construction. The two abutments at the CP tracks looked complete, and there were lots of steel beams for the bridge over the CP tracks staged on site. Erection of the north slope was coming along well, new fill and wall up to roughly upstairs floor level on my bilevel coach. Nothing done on the south slope as yet. Footings at Wallace and Bloor were poured and curing.

Grading and sound walls for double track north of Lawrence also progressing well.

- Paul
 
Every time I see a picture with 1800 Davenport in it I wonder who the heck approved that building up against the corridor like that. The south east corner of the building doesn't seem like it would meet standards for distance from the corridor or crash walls.
The standards used when that building was built never exist that are require today. It was built for freight trains like most buildings decades ago.

Distance and crash wall has only been around a decade.

When RR came to town, buildings when up close to the corridor as it was the goal of the RR to get a good return on the vestment of building the line in the first place. Less than 20 years ago, schools where built very close to the tracks. In fact, a school was rebuilt next to the grade separation for King and John St in Weston about 5 years ago with the play field on top of the rail corridor.

Can't force land owners to build crash walls or be 100' from the corridor without Metrolinx paying for it that existed long before Metrolinx was form. If the land is redeveloped, then the new standard come into effect.

The condos for Islington being built have crash wall and set back. Even the condos for Burlington which was one of the first to see crash wall and set back for towers even though the parking structure is at property edge and the roof is being use as common place.

All the buildings on the southside of Union Station have crash walls.
 

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