Waterfront Transit Reset Phase 1 Study

[DSC]

Is there any consensus as to whether Waterfront translit line should be continuous or terminating at Union?

I understand that there is massive development and population/employment growth projected for East Bayfront all the way into the Portlands, but my understanding is that despite that, Union is going to be the starting point or destination for the majority of trips, regardless if the tripmaker's origin/destination is on the eastern or the western waterfront.

This matters. Thorough Waterfront Transit line (streetcar or LRT) bypassing Union would be inconviencing a majority of tripmakers.

You seriously expect a consensus here?

I agree with you that most people from both East or West actually want to reach Union (I.e. the subway or GO) so an east to west service that would require a transfer of some sort at Queens Quay and Bay is not good. This was, in essence, the conclusion of the EA. Thats why 2 of the 3 options in the Reset Report are so silly!

 

[Rainforest]

It looks like there are three viable options:

a) Convert Bay St to a transit mall as Drum wrote, and route both QQE and QQW streetcars up Bay to connect to Union and much of downtown.

b) Convert Bay St to a transit mall, but use it for the QQE service only, leaving the existing tunnel and underground Union loop for QQW. That should be less disruptive than option (a), but there may be some technical obstacles. For example, the existing tunnel structure may not be strong enough to support large Flexities running on top of it at the street level.

c) Leave the existing tunnel and underground loop for the QQW use, and build a separate Union connection for QQE. The QQE connection may be surface, underground, or a combination of the two.

 

[drum118]

I have yet to received the link to tonight meeting and have to be elsewhere after lunch, therefore I am posting what you should see tonight. "GET OUT AND VOICE YOUR CONCERNS, AS WELL DO IT IN WRITING"

You will see boards of all the lines review and going forward with cross section showing what the street will look like in various location. I am assuming this since it wasn't clear what people will see other than the presentation at Tuesday night meeting.

As it stands, the Queensway west of Humber Loop to the West Mall, Kipling from Lake Shore to Dundas, Lake Shore for the CNE, all of Parliament St, all of Portland are to be protected under the official change in 2018 as future transit corridor.

The study was from Long Branch Loop to Woodbine. Anything east to Woodbine is beyond 2041 time frame and not in any future plans at this time due to low demand.

Long Branch Loop will be upgraded to a hub with better connection with Mississauga Transit.

Lake Shore will see no changes other than landscaping with an short ROW at Kipling and an ROW from Legion Rd to Humber Loop with bike lanes. I have no issues with this at all

The pinch point at Humber River is too bad to keep the LRT on the Lake Shore and it will follow the approved EA east from Corbin Lodge to Dufferin St.

Bathurst St will see an ROW south of Fort York to Queens Quay on the west side that will close off all streets current connect to it including Fleet. The current ROW south of Lake Shore will shift to the west also with access to the gas station from the Lake Shore only. The T connection at Fleet will shift to allow the Bathurst LRV to connect with Fleet with wider platforms. All southbound traffic going west on Lake Shore will have to use Fort York. A new left hand turning lane is supposed to be built for eastbound Lake Shore since Fleet is close now to traffic, but it should be at Fort York from my point of view. I can see westbound traffic trying to use Fleet like they do today. The idea of tunneling this intersection is dead on both cost and the construction mess it would have for the area that surface in JUNE. If they are rebuilding the existing ROW on Bathurst, they need to rebuilt the section on Queens Quay to keep traffic 100% on the north side like it should happen from day one. I think the ROW Should go up to Richmond St as well.

As noted, the Bremmer Line is dead since it only see about 750 rider a day on 121 route and never made sense from day one regardless having a tunnel already under the ACC. If the line did exist, the portal would be west of York St, not on the east side as plan. Even the developer of CityPlace never saw a need for a LRT on Bremmer, but force to provide an ROW for it.

I have already talked about Union and its has been council view to do something cheap than spend the big dollars to do it right, while given no thought to the hardship for riders who want to go east or west of Union like today. No other options were every looked at for Union last Tuesday and ram rode past the group. They will use feet traffic to show that its at least 3 times higher than transit and why the connection to Union should be kill. If you are going to talk about 3 options to replace the current line, you better have cost and time frame at hand to show what they should happen if you went this route. All were review and rejected in 2008 study and should see the same thing today.

If the QQE/W line is to be on the surface like it should be, you can have the east section up and running by 2021 at a lower cost than it would cost if it was tunnel approved in the EA wasn't built. You will need 7 extra cars to service the extension.

There is no prefer option or recommendation for this study. Let council decide what to do next. "OH!!, 2018 is an election year and lets defer it until 2019.

This study was a waste of everyone time and a delay doing anythings since there is no money for any of the approve EA's, other than the 30% design for the extension between Dufferin and the CNE loop.

 

[DopeyFish]

So what exactly is the waterfront route? Are they just putting lipstick on the 501 pig? Queen is a mess.

I don't know exactly what the EA calls for east of roncesvalles

 

[drum118]

So what exactly is the waterfront route? Are they just putting lipstick on the 501 pig? Queen is a mess.

I don't know exactly what the EA calls for east of roncesvalles

The 509 was used as an example going west of the CNE loop by the new Lakeshore/Queensway Line to Humber Loop/Park Side Loop or X.

Once Dufferin connection is in place, it allows TTC to run other routes off King and Queen from Roncey to X.

Once the QQE is built to the new Cherry St, TTC can do the same thing in the east with cars coming from Broadview Station. This goes back as far as 2006 for the east as well service from King or Queen, especially during special events.

 

[SaugeenJunction]

The presentation for tonight's meeting is up:

Waterfront Transit Reset Public Meeting Presentation

 

[innsertnamehere]

And.. there you go. Exactly what I was talking about. East Bayfront is expected to have 2350 PPHD eastbound in morning rush.. Compared to 1500 coming from Humber Bay. Note how the East Bayfront is eastbound as well - it is people coming from Union Station to travel to employment along the waterfront. Far more present and urgent of a need than Humber Bay. It could be up to 50% more if the Relief line is not constructed too.

 

[raptor]

The lack of traction on the Union Station connection is a joke

 

[nfitz]

Are you nuts wanting to close Bay St to traffic??

Why not - it only carries 800 cars northbound in the peak AM hour. Yonge is double that. And Simcoe was added recently. There's excess capacity at Sherbourne, Parliament, and Cherry. In PM peak it only carries 684 in peak hour. (I have to wonder if the constraint there is the overpacked Gardiner/Lakeshore, and the south feeders just wait for it - so reducing 1 or 2, really wouldn't change much.

Meanwhile the current streetcars alone can carry over 2,000 an hour. Presumably this at least doubles with the expanded loop and more services.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Closing any of the vehicle accesses to the core from the Gardiner is crazy, no matter what you may think. They badly need to blow Church through the rail corridor.

No car will rationally use the Sherbourne, Cherry or Parliament underpasses for destinations in the core. Distances are too far.

 

[DopeyFish]

After looking at the report... lakeshore stuff is fine.

Though would prefer ROW to long branch, do understand the neighborhood complaints... except for the whole U-turn whining

 

[Filip]

And.. there you go. Exactly what I was talking about. East Bayfront is expected to have 2350 PPHD eastbound in morning rush.. Compared to 1500 coming from Humber Bay. Note how the East Bayfront is eastbound as well - it is people coming from Union Station to travel to employment along the waterfront. Far more present and urgent of a need than Humber Bay. It could be up to 50% more if the Relief line is not constructed too.

You know, I always took you as someone who knows planning - but you failed to highlight that these assumptions take zoning as is. Christie's is used as employment lands to forecast demand. Think light industrial. Until zoning changes - planning continues to classify this land as manufacturing.

Which is why I'm pretty sure our planners couldn't plan their way out of an open cage.

 

[crs1026]

You know, I always took you as someone who knows planning - but you failed to highlight that these assumptions take zoning as is. Christie's is used as employment lands to forecast demand. Think light industrial. Until zoning changes - planning continues to classify this land as manufacturing.
Which is why I'm pretty sure our planners couldn't plan their way out of an open cage.

There is also the math. 1500 riders per hour not having transit for what, 15 years now - versus 2350 per hour having it from Day 1 does not represent a proportionate attention to the needs of different districts. I can buy advancing both east and west together but the numbers don't justify parking (no pun intended) the west end of this thing any longer.

- Paul

 

[44 North]

Is abandoning the loop not the same as abandoning the SRT - we are subtracting transit instead of adding it.
Can QQE and QQW not divert up (underground) to Lakeshore? The cuts the walk down to a reasonable amount.
The Bremner line would use the loop, or possibly get extending north via the loop to under Bay (and under YUS).
Not sure, but can Bremner/Fort York not go onto Fleet and go to the north end of Exhibition. Then QQW could follow Lakeshore or Princes' to serve the south part of the Ex and/or Ontario place - and continue on to be the WWLRT.

I don't think "abandoned" would be the word to use for the Extend option, nor the comparison to Line 3. The loop would still be part and parcel with the plans by becoming pedestrian space, which is extremely hard to come by down there. Right now it's like a narrow hallway between the subway and streetcar, and I don't see that becoming all that much better with the Expand option. Regardless, it's dead anyway. But interestingly the concept of through-routing has survived (A1 Major Loop Expansion), which was missing with the previous loop expansion plans. This new one is like a hybrid between Expand and Extend.

***
So with the new report, is anyone else noticing that the peak ridership numbers have taken a nosedive? It says "conservative estimate", but how conservative are we talking here? Originally the AM peak hour ridership numbers for Union Loop by 2021 were 10,500 outbound and 8k inbound. Now they're saying 'conservatively' (by 2041 no less) it's to be 3,700 outbound and 1,700 inbound. That's like a mere fraction. How does that make sense, even with the RL or ST in place? This seems to be the last 50yrs of transit planning in TO in a nutshell. Severely lowball ridership numbers in the downtown area, but do the opposite elsewhere with unrealistic projection inflation.

original ridership #s

updated ridership #s

 

[drum118]

Why not - it only carries 800 cars northbound in the peak AM hour. Yonge is double that. And Simcoe was added recently. There's excess capacity at Sherbourne, Parliament, and Cherry. In PM peak it only carries 684 in peak hour. (I have to wonder if the constraint there is the overpacked Gardiner/Lakeshore, and the south feeders just wait for it - so reducing 1 or 2, really wouldn't change much.

Meanwhile the current streetcars alone can carry over 2,000 an hour. Presumably this at least doubles with the expanded loop and more services.

My comments are what being said to me and got the same reaction tonight when I talked about closing Bay to traffic.

Based on the numbers we did on QQW, it supported the removal of 2 lanes and no different doing it to Bay.

I pushed for a review of my 2008 recommendation for Bay and going back to the team to be looked at, since Bay has to be look at in the first place.

What got me on Tuesday as well tonight, how low the inbound ridership was compare to the 2008 numbers that were higher for the QQE back then. QQE was close to 2,000 with about 1,500 for QQW for a combine of 3,500. Talk about skewing number to met a different out come.

The link wasn't sent to any stakeholder and we were inform of the link at the meeting. I was expecting it to be held up until tonight.

Need to read Steve Munro site Tuesday, as he will be cutting this study up nicely.

Other than the Union Loop, no issues with what been proposed since it has already been approved during various EA's. Bathurst is a nice touch, but kill the left turn at Bathurst for Lake Shore. I get the rest of the QQW that I call for in 2008.

The big question, Where is the money going to come from to built these lines as well when???

TTC opposed any grade crossing for any of the tunnel option underground and prefer to be on the surface as an east-west line. You can build the east section first just short of Bay St and keep the loop open while it been built. Once everything is ready to connect to the west line, you close the line down for a few months to fill in the ramp and portal. You then make the final connection between the 2 section.