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

Heeeyy, remember all those times I said “maybe high density on an island with limited means off isn’t the way to go?” Or when I argued that most folks wouldn’t entertain the notion of walking to the Distillery Streetcar loop?
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Nobody is even living there yet- this is a summer event with beautiful walking weather. But hey, whatevs- what are we doing? 30k? 50k new units? Forget asking for a Toronto island bridge, the minute we pack density over there, Villiers is gonna want another bridge.
They are contemplating 9k units there.

To be fair, people are more willing to walk through an urban neighbourhood than a gigantic construction site.
 
Also as soon as we have people living here we will hopefully have a network of streets and therefore also bus routes and a streetcar one day, which will all help make this area more accessible. The transit options to the area at the moment are abysmal.
 
These people are suburbanites going to Cherry Beach and Polson. They are not the same travel patterns as those that will be created by Villiers Island.

That said, it's insane that they haven't built the streetcar even to Sugar Beach yet, where thousands of people are already living and working.
Yes, it is totally ridiculous that the QQE streetcar (which is a "City Priority") has still not been built to, at least, Parliament. There are NO plans to bring the streetcar further south than Commissioners Street - that's not to say it will not go further south at some point but I bet most of us will be 'out of it' long before then. That said, the City DOES have plans (or hopes) to rebuild the bridge on Unwin in next few years so it will be wider and then a bus service could also run ON Unwin between Cherry and Leslie.
 
There's also not more than 80 cars in that entire photo. Assuming 2.5 people/car with the nature of the destinations, that's like three streetcars worth of people, or six buses.
 
One other thing to remember which should help with the congestion is the street extension of Queens Quay to Cherry St. Having an alternate route heading east/west will be a big help in reducing the bottle neck on Lake Shore as people try to turn on to it from Cherry St.

That being said, the only real solution is the LRT in combination with a further increase in people choosing to walk/cycle and a reduction in ride share and cars.
 
...at the end of the day there's a congestion of cars in an area that is supposed to be about green renewal, healthy living and forward thinking. So this is both embarrassing and unacceptable...either give car drivers an incentive to not to drive or make it so that congestion is not a thing here, IMO.
 
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That said, it's insane that they haven't built the streetcar even to Sugar Beach yet, where thousands of people are already living and working.

Totally agreed - that streetcar is desperately needed. But could you imagine if they started building that extension today? With all the current road closures, downtown would be in crisis mode!
 
Totally agreed - that streetcar is desperately needed. But could you imagine if they started building that extension today? With all the current road closures, downtown would be in crisis mode!
The QQE streetcar line will, one day (dv), run on south side of Queen's Quay and building it would probably NOT cause much more traffic chaos than now as the QQE roadway would be pretty much unaffected. Of course, WT and the City have plans to rebuild QQE completely and there is no doubt that when they start doing that, QQE will be, at best, narrower during construction. The expensive part of this project is the tunnel below Bay Street and expanding the streetcar loop at Union Station - though there would be some surface work, I suspect that Bay could remain open during construction.
 

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