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Toronto St. Clair West Transit Improvements | ?m | ?s | TTC

It really makes you wonder why we spent all this money when travel times are the same. How is that cost-effective, exactly?
 
"If you ask me if it was better before, I say yes." The right-of-way "is ugly and it just looks like a sea of concrete now,'' Raymond says.
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Shes an optician? I think its time she retires. If her eyes are that bad, I wouldn't trust her with my eyes. The St. Clair ROW is so much better looking than what was there before. At least now there are trees and plantings to counter all of the concrete. The concrete also has a nice pattern to it now.

But critics like Jeff Gillan, executive director of the Corso Italia BIA, which represents businesses near Dufferin and St. Clair, say the project is a great example of how not to build transit.

"The city was incompetent in managing this project. There's no reason for it to have taken this long,'' he says.
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Was the BIA not part of the group that stopped construction at the beginning? And now, they are blaming the city?

I was curious one day and decided to take the St. Clair streetcar from Yonge to St. Clair West station and I have to say, the trip is so much more pleasant now. You don't get stuck behind cars making left turns. It makes for a quick trip now. I would definitely use it as an alternative to the Bloor-Danforth line once the new LRT cars are delivered.
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
It really makes you wonder why we spent all this money when travel times are the same. How is that cost-effective, exactly?
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They had to spend the money because everything on the street had to be rebuilt anyways, rebuilding the tracks in their own ROW did not add much to the cost. You can't expect travel times to be reduced by any significant margin if stops are not eliminated.
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
It really makes you wonder why we spent all this money when travel times are the same. How is that cost-effective, exactly?
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To add onto the above post.

The plan for the ROW was so that they will be able to achieve the same frequency using less street cars on the tracks.

The ROW eliminates the problems of bunching of street cars and the unpredictability of traffic.

So some of the cost savings come from fewer vehicles, less maintenance, less electricity and fewer operators.

Now, the ROW also opens up the possibility of priority signaling. If implemented like it is done on Queen's Quay, travel times will be reduced.


And then you need to add in the revenue brought into the area simplely because it got a complete makeover and nobody should dispute the fact that it looks better now than it did before. Property values will rise and therefore property tax income etc etc.
 
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UD2 said:
And then you need to add in the revenue brought into the area simple because it got a complete makeover and nobody should dispute the fact that it looks better now than it did before. Property values will rise and therefore property tax income etc etc.
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There's already been a mini-gentrification wave sweeping through. The BIA director himself admits this. He bemoans the 50 store closures, but then notes there's only 6 vacancies left! That's 44 new businesses opening up. A lot of other BIA's would love to have that much interest in their area.

There has been a lot of change and when the dust has settled a year from now, the neighbourhoods west of Bathurst will all be a lot different.
 
TTC is pushing for a Dec date of resuming streetcar service to Lansdowne Loop than Oakwood Loop. All Streetcars will operate out and be store at Hillcrest until the Dupont bridge is finish.

My understanding there is no rush to get the overhead up for Oakwood Loop at this time and that system will be different than the Lansdowne Loop. Very odd.

There is a possibility that Gunns loop will not see any construction at all considering there are construction drawings for it and is part of the contract. No idea at this time why this may happen.

The overhead between Vaughan Platform and Arlington westbound platform is 100% strung now for both tracks.

The westbound traffic lanes between Atlas and Oakwood will be 100% pour by the weekend. Sidewalk is finish.

Wychwood Platform panel has been installed correctly.

Paving and light poles will take place next week and the westbound lanes open to traffic Oct 4th. This will allow work to start on the overhead system.

Sidewalk construction is taking place on the south side west of Glenholme like I expected to happen and that will be finish next week. With the pressure on the contractor by the city now, the contractor project manager was operating the curb machine along with a lot of new faces doing the work. Some are from phase IV crew under a different company, but part of the same family.

Will not be over to phase IV until next week, but as of Sat, things are not looking good to the point it has taken 2 weeks to get the north sidewalk pour from Old Weston Rd to the bridge. Any of the other 2 company's on St Clair would have it and the whole intersection done by now with work taking place on the south side.

Work was taking place for the north side sidewalk on the west side of Keele/Weston Rd intersection with waterline work still taking place in the intersection.

The contractor doing the first part of Phase 4 should be finish this week or early next week as the ROW was 100% pour leaving the 2nd traffic lane and 2 platforms to be finish.

There are going to be centre poles after all as holes were been drill in vault like areas and 3 poles were up on Sat. My understanding that due to the unknown condition during construction with the fire department was going to allow or nor allow the centre poles, box out vault area was use to allow construction to proceed. It would be easy to go back and pour concrete 100% in that hole if no poles were going to be allow or go back and drill the hole for the poles and then fill it all in with concrete.

This is the case from Hendrick to Dufferin with a few poles location near Dufferin.

There is no centre poles from Caledonia to Laughton and will be done the old fashion way. There is a cut in the the curb under the bridge to allow Fire Trucks or buses to get on/off the ROW.

A different style of street light poles for the sidewalk are going up like Phase III, but on the cheap side. I believe these light poles will be from Caledonia to Old Weston Rd only. Only this section as well phase III as getting sidewalk light poles due to the strong BIA's in these area's.

I did a new photo shoot of Townsley Loop and can be seen here. I hope to put phase IV photo's full size on line in the next month or so after I get Phase II on line. Up to 1,500 photo's for Phase II for this year and not sure how many video's at this time.

Sept 24
Westbound Phase II Wychwood-Oakwood
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHii59plg6c

Eastbound St Clair Phase II Dufferin-Glenholme
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZaqWLOkkjg

Eastbound St Clair Phase II Oakwood-Arlington
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkO_WgcEG6Y

Sept 19
Caledonia-Ford Dr
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcdsH0Ccdko

Westbound @ Old Weston Rd
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlqyS0EvomE

westbound from Christie to Oakwood
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smUc7IqT2Zk

Townsley Loop
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2QKbApxZw8

Phase IV
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrH839GQRSc
 
According to the TTC:

The TTC is scheduling the return of streetcar service from St. Clair West Station to the Lansdowne streetcar loop in Fall 2009. Streetcar service west to Gunns Loop is scheduled to resume at the end of 2009.
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The winter solstice is on December 21, 2009 at 17:47 UTC (12:47 Toronto time). Cutting it a little close with the Lansdowne service, since the 20th is still fall or autumn. Don’t know about getting streetcar service to Gunns Loop by December 31st, thou. Hope there’s no snow or heavy rain until then. More likely it will be 2010 for Gunns.
 
Jaye101 said:
^^ I think he means December 20th to Gunns Loop. Edit: Nvm.
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No, I think not - the section of streetcar track east of Gunns Loop to the bridge is not being worked on at all yet - they are only working on the Hydro lines etc. If you read Steve's post (and the chart he links to) you will see that the TTC plans bus service from Oakwood to Keele (Gunns Loop) in January 2010. I doubt they will complete this final section of track until April or May 2010.
 
^^ Yeah, that's why I edited my post afterwards and included the 'nvm.'

Actually Gunns Loop is scheduled to finish construction by the 17th of October (though Drum118 states it may not happen), and track work west of Ford is supposed to begin on the 1st. This is only a 3 block stretch and is scheduled to be completed in December, however I'm guessing the delay has to do with related post-construction preperations for service resumption.

http://www.toronto.ca/wes/techservi...construction/pdf/2009-08-04_ford_to_gunns.pdf
 
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DSC said:
No, I think not - the section of streetcar track east of Gunns Loop to the bridge is not being worked on at all yet - they are only working on the Hydro lines etc. If you read Steve's post (and the chart he links to) you will see that the TTC plans bus service from Oakwood to Keele (Gunns Loop) in January 2010. I doubt they will complete this final section of track until April or May 2010.
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If either of the 2 contractors doing St Clair now was doing the final section, Old Weston Rd intersection would be 100% rebuilt as well up to the bridge by now.

Will be interesting to see if the north sidewalk is built west of the Keele Intersection as they were working on it over a week ago.

Dufferin Construction has stated they have until Dec to finish the project. If that is true, then TTC should be running to Gunns Loop no later than March. They are sure dragging their feet on it so far.

It will be interesting to see if Gunns Loop gets rebuilt at all or as per the new design for it since someone in the know said it may not happen.
 
I'd like to know why aren't there any warnings for pedestrians about the sidewalk between Keele and Old Weston. I happen to make the trek eastbound from Keele tonight (in the dark I might add to make it worse) and there are no signs up indicating the state of the sidewalk. In fact the south side should be entirely cordoned off for pedestrian use right now as it's a minefield of holes and by the bingo hall there is no sidewalk at all just mud and gravel but no safe way of navigating it without the risk of being hit by eastbound traffic. Someone is going to get hurt.
Really bad. Really, really bad:mad:
 
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