Toronto Ontario Line: Riverside-Leslieville Station | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | HDR

Yesterday: OL/LSE corridor between Logan / Dundas and Queen / Riverside. Tons of workers on site everywhere, as expected.

Logan Avenue bridge, looking north:
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Dundas bridge, looking NW:
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Last sections of the lego-puzzle assembly:

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Final effect of the wall + noise barrier behind Jimmie Simpson park, which (among other things) was a main talking point of the "Save Jimmie Simpson" campaign. Looks nice!

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Quite a tight squeeze between the corridor and the JS building itself:

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Finally, streetcar service has resumed under the Queen bridge:

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So are they adding two more tracks, plus the Ontario line through this stretch? Or is this just adding the Ontario line here?
 
UrbanAffair said:
So are they adding two more tracks, plus the Ontario line through this stretch? Or is this just adding the Ontario line here?
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Six tracks total, 4 for GO, 2 for the OL.

There were 3 GO Tracks previously.
 
For me, the wall is a mighty monument to the misguided priorities of Doug Ford and Metrolinx. They are going to bury more than 3km of the Eglinton West extension through barren, empty suburbia which offers no benefits and excessive costs yet they couldn't bother to bury a kilometre of rail through a mature neighbourhood that would have unlocked real benefits and value. It's damn pathetic.

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flonicky said:
For me, the wall is a mighty monument to the misguided priorities of Doug Ford and Metrolinx. They are going to bury more than 3km of the Eglinton West extension through barren, empty suburbia which offers no benefits and excessive costs yet they couldn't bother to bury a kilometre of rail through a mature neighbourhood that would have unlocked real benefits and value. It's damn pathetic.

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Agreed. I give relatively high marks to Ford on transit (at least relative to his other policies), but it’s a travesty that the Eglinton Crosstown West extension is being buried. We could have used the money saved for the burying for the nearby (and unfunded) Jane LRT.
 
flonicky said:
For me, the wall is a mighty monument to the misguided priorities of Doug Ford and Metrolinx. They are going to bury more than 3km of the Eglinton West extension through barren, empty suburbia which offers no benefits and excessive costs yet they couldn't bother to bury a kilometre of rail through a mature neighbourhood that would have unlocked real benefits and value. It's damn pathetic.
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The biggest benefits of burying the O/L through Riverdale would have been to Metrolinx / VIA

By building overground, we've had LSE Express service suspended and off-peak weekday service reduced (from every 15M to every 30M) for the better part of 4 years, with seemingly, another still to go.

That has caused a lot of people to quit downtown jobs and/or resume driving.

On top of that, it permanently limits the capacity of non-OL trackage here to 4 tracks, where 6 would have been highly desirable so as to accommodate VIA and HFR/HSR

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I'm less offended by the giant walls in that some of this would have likely been necessary for future corridor expansion for the reasons I outline above, except that it wouldn't have been needed yet.
 
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I'm generally more offending by the choices a thing represents rather than the thing itself. In terms of transit projects across the city, choices are still heavily weighted in favour of car-focused suburban development.

I mean, for a wall, this one isn't too bad.
 
flonicky said:
For me, the wall is a mighty monument to the misguided priorities of Doug Ford and Metrolinx. They are going to bury more than 3km of the Eglinton West extension through barren, empty suburbia which offers no benefits and excessive costs yet they couldn't bother to bury a kilometre of rail through a mature neighbourhood that would have unlocked real benefits and value. It's damn pathetic.

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I disagree. This corridor was there anyway, the construction of OL is actually cleaning it up. Instead of ugly railroad bridges, we are getting new bridges and overhead rapid transit stations that look way better and integrate into the neighbourhood. It is a cost effective use of an existing rail corridor. I do however agree that Eglinton West could have been elevated (assuming there is a large cost difference).
 
It’s at least being built quickly but Mx outright lied about having “graffiti proof” finishes that we all know don’t exist so a tad annoyed we’re going to have miles of graffiti covered walls with no city budget to address their clean up…. The community begged for vines or other alternates like artificial turf type finished walls but now we’ll have miles of graffiti covered walls just like we all knew we’d see and exactly like the graffiti covered rail corridor in the west end since Mx is basically using the same old same old products along the corridor while ignoring better solutions that exist across the globe 😑
 
innsertnamehere said:
The solution is unburying Eglinton, not burying the OL.

Keeping the OL at grade along here will make it a much more pleasant user experience. Have you seen how deep the downtown OL stations will be? It will be infinitely easier to access for residents being above grade through here.
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The solution is raising Eglinton West, not bringing to grade. And the OL is totally fine on the existing corridor through Riverside/Leslieville.
 
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