Toronto Lower Don Lands Redevelopment | ?m | ?s | Waterfront Toronto

1. Is the plan to eventually get the concrete folks out?
2. Does the Bascule get replaced or affixed in place if/when the concrete place leaves?
3. Do we still want massive towers on an island when the third way off it can just randomly break down?
4. That last question does make me wonder. They have a fire station planned and the firefighters can do some basic EMT, but any traffic on lake shore can become a physical impediment for ambulances, sirens or not- given the current and proposed population- when does a new hospital come into play? Are we just going to keep expanding St. Mikes? Pray that you can get to Hospital row during rush hour? Redirect to Michael Garron? Maybe East Harbour can devote some of that unwanted office space to a facility?
 
Northern Light said:
Except, that as I have clearly shown with actual distances it is not within walking distance as most Torontonians would envision it.

I did so in this post, among others:

Lower Don Lands Redevelopment | ?m | ?s | Waterfront Toronto

This makes me even more frustrated that the Waterfront East LRT is dragging and there wasn't an OL station closer to the Portlands. And it's unfortunate that things are the way they are; but it's good that you recognize the disconnect. The density and the transit should be closely tied...
urbantoronto.ca urbantoronto.ca

From said post:

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The 700M is within but pushing most people's idea of walking distance........but that's the closest measured point. The median distance 1.2km or about a 17 minute walk at a good clip.



Hasn't happened and wont' happen..........would be a starting point there.



A 45 minute walk at average healthy adult walking speed. Of zero consequence for modal split.



The proposal at Villiers is serious density, and significantly higher density that St.James Town which you repeatedly have said, in print is too dense.

You will will have to make up your mind.
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Glad you brought up the whole walking distance thing. Because it IS a perception vs reality thing.

I grew up with a bus stop across the street, and a bus stop down the block. Both were considered by my family to be within walking distance. If there was a road problem (accident or construction) there was another bus line a handful of blocks away, but that was never a first choice or regular option because of distance. If things were reaaally tight, my parents would offer a drive to the station, because it was seen as unreasonable to walk that far.

Eventually I’d look it all up and see that the choice bus stop was 20m away. The secondary option was 200m away. The last resort bus was 450m and the subway station 1km.

So having lived that, my experience says that everyone likes to talk about “only 1km” but nobody likes to walk that.

It’s the same as when everyone would talk about Canary/Distillery as having sooo many grocery stores and pharmacies within walking distance and I’d argue that unless something was across the street, everyone was getting in their cars because 750m-1+km was not a desirable distance for most, especially with a couple bags of broccoli and laundry detergent.

We should have new game, but instead of “F$&!, Marry, Kill” it’s “Walk, bus, car” then have folks make decisions about destinations before knowing the distance.
 
One last thing- change of pace, but I found these pics I took of T&T’s last weekend. 2020 pre-covid. Thought I’d share because of how damn quaint it all looked. Hard to imagine it was ever there. But we got a whole new bridge and river in its place.

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jxmith_ said:
1. Is the plan to eventually get the concrete folks out?
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There are two cement plants, Lafarge and Essroc. Essroc has moved their operations to their new plant on Leslie slip, they were kind of forced out since the new bridges cut off their port access in the Keating channel. I’m not sure what WT’s plans are for the old silos - whether to clean them up or knock them down.

The Lafarge plant on Polson has no need to relocate and definitely won’t without force or some kind of funding.

A note to anyone who wants to uproot the industry entirely from this area: to have material resource provider in the port lands, as opposed to outside Toronto, means shorter distribution routes, which helps us build quicker and reduce road congestion. This is of course because the raw materials are supplied by sea and the goods (construction materials, etc) are consumed primarily in the dense parts of downtown.
 
jxmith_ said:
Glad you brought up the whole walking distance thing. Because it IS a perception vs reality thing.

I grew up with a bus stop across the street, and a bus stop down the block. Both were considered by my family to be within walking distance. If there was a road problem (accident or construction) there was another bus line a handful of blocks away, but that was never a first choice or regular option because of distance. If things were reaaally tight, my parents would offer a drive to the station, because it was seen as unreasonable to walk that far.

Eventually I’d look it all up and see that the choice bus stop was 20m away. The secondary option was 200m away. The last resort bus was 450m and the subway station 1km.

So having lived that, my experience says that everyone likes to talk about “only 1km” but nobody likes to walk that.

It’s the same as when everyone would talk about Canary/Distillery as having sooo many grocery stores and pharmacies within walking distance and I’d argue that unless something was across the street, everyone was getting in their cars because 750m-1+km was not a desirable distance for most, especially with a couple bags of broccoli and laundry detergent.

We should have new game, but instead of “F$&!, Marry, Kill” it’s “Walk, bus, car” then have folks make decisions about destinations before knowing the distance.
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Good grief. Even with my gout and limpy hip I can cover 1km in less than ten minutes. I live 0.8km from the nearest subway station. I consider myself to live 'on" the subway line. If I lived on Villier's Island I would definitely walk to the East Harbour Station.
 
Paul Aitken said:
Good grief. Even with my gout and limpy hip I can cover 1km in less than ten minutes. I live 0.8km from the nearest subway station. I consider myself to live 'on" the subway line. If I lived on Villier's Island I would definitely walk to the East Harbour Station.
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And that’s wonderful for you- but what I’m describing is a desire path for distance. Before Marché Leo moved in, my guess was that 80-90% of anyone who lived in Canary District drove for groceries despite being 800m from the No Frills. It’s not about how you think people should be, it’s designing for how they are. And if the perception is that 1km feels too far, they’re not gonna walk it.

Disney knew the distance folks would walk to throw something in the trash and set his trash cans within that distance, he didn’t demand everyone match his brisk stride and go any further to toss a wrapper. I don’t think we cater to people’s laziness if we build things according to common use, which is all that’s being suggested
 
Paul Aitken said:
Good grief. Even with my gout and limpy hip I can cover 1km in less than ten minutes. I live 0.8km from the nearest subway station. I consider myself to live 'on" the subway line. If I lived on Villier's Island I would definitely walk to the East Harbour Station.
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Agree. Less than 1 km is on the subway line. 2 km or more is a little far. But the walk under the Gardner and Train Tracks on a horrible November evening would not be that pleasant.
 
hawc said:
Agree. Less than 1 km is on the subway line. 2 km or more is a little far. But the walk under the Gardner and Train Tracks on a horrible November evening would not be that pleasant.
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2015. Pan Am Game tourists stepped out of the Distillery and stared south on Parliament. The dark tunnel under the rail berm, the looming broken expressway. They seemed conflicted, but went north. That was during a sunny day in the summer. Many things discourage walking, like dingy underpasses- or perceived distances.

Was recently looking at the old Warden Woods and thought this would be an interesting study.

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Sizeable community, subway station “within walking distance”. So… how many just walk down to warden and catch a bus to the station? You know the number isn’t zero. The idea of crossing a massive parking lot in the wind and snow, or searing heat Isn’t ideal. And I’m not asking folks “would they” but rather, “how have the residents gotten to the station on a regular basis, what changes your route, and what could ensure a better walk?”

And it would be interesting to see if residents who don’t bother crossing the parking lot here feel just fine getting the furthest parking spot from the doors of Yorkdale mall during Christmas rush.
 
could we eventually remediate the lack of a subway station on the Ontario Line with a future, RER-style Cherry GO station? it really does suck that we won't have a Cherry subway station, but that doesn't mean this can't be addressed with another form of transit. also taking a bus or streetcar to a subway station 800 metres away really isn't the end of the world
 
dougtoronto said:
could we eventually remediate the lack of a subway station on the Ontario Line with a future, RER-style Cherry GO station?
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At under 900M to East Harbour Station, I'm inclined to say the answer is no.

There is also precious little room in the corridor there to add platforms.

dougtoronto said:
..... also taking a bus or streetcar to a subway station 800 metres away really isn't the end of the world
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I don't believe anyone suggested it would be the end of the world.

However, the actual distances are up to 1.7km to East Harbour Station from the corner of Commissioners and New Cherry.

That still is not so bad, except that it is lower capacity vs a subway, and moving vast numbers of people really requires fully grade separated transit, and higher capacity trains.

It's a question of math of what you need to move the peak number of people, in the peak hour of demand.

It's also a question of convenience, the simple reality being that longer waits, waits in non in open-to-the-weather environments and transfers due lower modal split for transit.
 
I live at Gerrard and River. All subway stations feel too far away to walk. College? Over 2Km away. Castle Frank? Over 2km away. Take Broadview streetcar up to Broadview. Sucks. Take Gerrard streetcar to College station. Also kinda sucks. But I can't drive or cycle to work so I ride a little electric push scooter to College, fold it up and hop on the subway there.
 
jxmith_ said:
And that’s wonderful for you- but what I’m describing is a desire path for distance. Before Marché Leo moved in, my guess was that 80-90% of anyone who lived in Canary District drove for groceries despite being 800m from the No Frills. It’s not about how you think people should be, it’s designing for how they are. And if the perception is that 1km feels too far, they’re not gonna walk it.

Disney knew the distance folks would walk to throw something in the trash and set his trash cans within that distance, he didn’t demand everyone match his brisk stride and go any further to toss a wrapper. I don’t think we cater to people’s laziness if we build things according to common use, which is all that’s being suggested
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I doubt 80% of Canada District residents are car owners.
 
dougtoronto said:
could we eventually remediate the lack of a subway station on the Ontario Line with a future, RER-style Cherry GO station? it really does suck that we won't have a Cherry subway station, but that doesn't mean this can't be addressed with another form of transit. also taking a bus or streetcar to a subway station 800 metres away really isn't the end of the world
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If we're not building a subway station with that spacing, then a GO station becomes sillier. It's too close, and really only serves local stops. It doesn't even provide access to OL transfers, so ... there have been worse projects proposed, but it's not a great use of money.

My overall suggestion would be to expedite the Broadview extension project, possibly at the same time as the Union <-> WWE line, to provide for streetcar/subway transfers at East Harbour. This should be relatively affordable, especially if we get our costs down (in all honesty all of WWE should not cost more than $1 billion, maybe $1.2 billion, and certainly not the $2.6 billion for half of it. /sigh), and would also provide for one-ride access to Bloor-Danforth.
christiesplits said:
According to the 2021 Census via CensusMapper.ca, 46% of residents in Canary District drive a car as their main mode of commuting. This is higher than I would have guessed.

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It looks like active transport and transit are pretty evenly split, transit having the slightly lower share. I'd guess this is at least in part because of the erratic "streetcar" "service" operated these days.
 
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