Waterfront Transit Reset Phase 1 Study

[steveintoronto]

Sidewalk thinking this may not happen for them and are looking for a scapegoat ("no it isn't that we completely mishandled public comms - it's that there wasn't a streetcar")

Since they have virtually bottomless pockets, it would have been supremely apt for them to finance and own their own line, and lease it to the TTC. In fact, if they do it through the Infrastructure Bank, the Feds would match funds up to a ratio of 4:1 if the project was federally chartered....something that might put the Province on notice as to how QP can be gone around.

Private Initiative, without having to deal with the morons at QP. How can Sidewalk lose on the investment long-term? And they'd spark other private investors to flock to adjacent lands. The concept is so bog obvious, but I digress.

 

[DSC]

Ok, then how much does Google want to help pay for the transit? You want it, pay for it.

Is that not what they are saying? They seem prepared to put the $$ up front for the QQE transit and want to be paid back over x years through $$ raised from additional property taxes etc. One can argue about how much of the cost they will front (100%??), how long they want the repayment period to be etc etc but it seems pretty silly not to AT LEAST listen to what they are offering, negotiate with them and then decide if it's a good idea for the City. Clearly, if we rely on public funds coming any year soon we will not see better transit (again).

 

[steveintoronto]

^ What Sidewalk is proposing technically is most welcome. I think it will spur more investment. But their political approach is wrong, Doctoroff of all people should know that their request for 'a share of the tax assessment' is wrong headed and immediately flags resistance.

Sidewalk should step back, draft up a completely different business case proposal for the same concept, and present it as a stand-alone project and business to the Infrastructure Bank, where they'd get federal participation too, and a federal charter to build it on federal terms: The city and province would have no legal say other than from representation on the board of the company in view of cash investment, or land granted.

Think REM in Montreal.

 

[thettctransitfanatic]

Sidewalk wants the LRT because of this reason : A tech driven, downtown located neighborhood should have like a transportation option that is modern. However, since the QQE LRT project has been put back many times, who knows.

 

[drum118]

March 4
Did some shooting of the Yonge Slip area as well Westin before going to the public meeting on Monday, to get an idea of doing an in fill of about 200' of the existing water area or doing a deck over for the new plan of moving the portal from Freeland to west of Yonge. It would line up for a new ramp to the Westin Hotel as will getting trucks in/out of the area.

This plan was to be shown during the presentation, but never was along with a few other things. The presentation was basely the same that I and Steve saw on Thursday. Was not impress with the presentation both nights, especially the poor turn out both nights.

The report going to council will be on line March 25 and you can speak to this matter on April 6.

If all the ducks line up correctly, the earliest you can see an east-west line for streetcars is about 2023/24 and having the loop in service by 2027/29. Going out for tender would be about 2021/22.

Until cost comparison is done, no idea if moving the portal location is the correct option

Most of the snow cover water would be the area require to support the relocation of the portal to west of Yonge. It would enhance the new park that is to be built east of it if money can be found for it.

Need to line up with the truck entrance, with a new ramp to the right that will match the existing ramp currently in place

New Portal location

 

[TransitBart]

Happy to report that the prefer option for Monday Night Meeting will be the streetcar loop expansion. Down side is the fact it will be close for 4-5 years to rebuilt it. The people mover (PM) was to be 3-4 years. The very down side is the fact its in the city 10 year budget plan. This mean we may not see the loop expansion until 2030.

A lot depends on what funding the city can get from the fed's as well the ranking of various projects going after this money.

No real winner when it came to cost between both options.

Had to straighten out the City when they try to push the numbers of riders using the PM compare to streetcars on Bay. I stated that you were moving the congestion from Union to the new QQ station because streetcars are caught up along the route which would be the same if they use the current tunnel. Sure, the PM will move more riders since it goes end to end with no congestion, but only help to backup access getting to/from the QQ platform.

Something surface at tonight meeting and that is the relocation of the east portal to just west of Yonge St. To deal with the removal of the mess in front of The Westin Harbour Castle, part of the current slip would have to be built over it or fill in to get cars and trucks to it in/out of The Westin Harbour Castle. Traffic light intersection.

Numbers been used for the loop by 2041 was 4-8,000 at peak time and less than the 2008-2010 EA. Good for today, but not for 2050, if not sooner.

Lots of talk about building Pathways all over the place.

Someone suggested building a temporary loop where the new York St Park is to go in.

There will be plus 35 bridges on both sides of the rail corridor over Bay St connecting to Union Station and CIBC towers.

At least this puts paid to the People Mover option. The city planners (and whomever else) who brought that as a serious transit option are not credible voices in my universe.

 

[DSC]

At least this puts paid to the People Mover option. The city planners (and whomever else) who brought that as a serious transit option are not credible voices in my universe.

It apparently came from the (ex) CEO of Waterfront Toronto and was never favoured by the TTC (or the City).

 

[steveintoronto]

New Portal location

I included just the two pics above to answer your very good post, as what jumps off the page in astounding logic for me is:
Surface Run the QQELRT.

Tunnelling where unnecessary is an absurdity. What resonates in my mind, other than the filthy snow and line of cars, is the San Diego Convention Center with the SD Trolleys running in their surface RoW proudly in front of the building:

Obviously San Diego had the sense to retain some class to their boulevards, and those boulevards and streets are much wider than QQ, but note also the railway mainline to the right of the LRT tracks. That goes to the freight and commuter train yard to the south of this picture and onto Mexico, as does the LRT. In fact the mainline and LRT share that trackage, a whole other point that Ontario might wish to consider...next century. Maybe...

Instead of burying everything, ostensibly all for the sake of the Almighty Car, just bury where absolutely necessary for ease of streetcar flow. It might even be wise to consider filling in the ramp from the western portal such that east and west QQ lines join head-on and a surface 'Y' is built such that the stem of the 'Y' feeds into an emerging portal at the base of Bay St. Surface streetcar congestion? Perhaps. They have computerized signalling and control in other cities for such things to smooth and dynamically adjust speeds of approach and timing, and thus maximize throughput.

If that plan has too many detriments, then surface-run the streetcars for QQE into a portal to run into another tunnel to the east of Bay leaving the present Spadina loop intact and as is save for increased passenger loading/unloading space at Union. Or as some have suggested, use double-ended consists that reverse in stub tracks near Union with a separate entrance altogether than the Spadina leg.

As if Toronto isn't in enough knots as it is through piss poor planning, lack of vision and penny-wise pound foolishness. And now Rube Goldberg becomes the inspiration for City Planners on this matter. ULTIMATE Rube Goldberg machine - YouTube

There's still time to do a loop to the east of Bay. And burying it under QQ for the length proposed just makes the concept that much more impossible in rational terms.

 

[Northern Light]

Instead of burying everything, ostensibly all for the sake of the Almighty Car, just bury where absolutely necessary for ease of streetcar flow. It might even be wise to consider filling in the ramp from the western portal such that east and west QQ lines join head-on and a surface 'Y' is built such that the stem of the 'Y' feeds into an emerging portal at the base of Bay St. Surface streetcar congestion? Perhaps. They have computerized signalling and control in other cities for such things to smooth and dynamically adjust speeds of approach and timing, and thus maximize throughput.

If that plan has too many detriments, then surface-run the streetcars for QQE into a portal to run into another tunnel to the east of Bay leaving the present Spadina loop intact and as is save for increased passenger loading/unloading space at Union. Or as some have suggested, use double-ended consists that reverse in stub tracks near Union with a separate entrance altogether than the Spadina leg.

I like the idea of shifting the portal to Bay Street.

I think the rationale for the tunnel was that one was required to meet Union Station and along Bay as far as Harbour the traffic volume made it fairly necessary.

The choice was then made to create an underground station south of Harbour before coming up to QQ.

It seems to me, the volume of traffic at the station could be managed on the surface, though it would probably require wider than normal platforms.

I think that option, on its face, would seem rational and cost effective.

My only question would be, can the portal (on Bay) achieve the requisite slope to be fully underground by the Harbour intersection?

Google shows 94M between the QQ and Harbour intersections.

I'm thinking that's tight; @drum118 or @smallspy would probably have a better idea if that could fit.

I don't think its workable to place the portal any further north, nor could they run surface track beyond Harbour.

 

[steveintoronto]

^ I'm glad that's sparked a different way of examining possibilities. A lot of what's making things difficult to the point of never being done is overthinking solutions by complexities that may not be necessary.

St Clair Station may also hold answers in terms of acceptable ramp angle/length, and what kind of throughput is possible with even simple signalling systems and flat junctions.

There's a litany of variances that may or may not improve the performance of a state-of-the-art flat junction. One of them would be to forego the run-through option, (QQE to QQW) so both directions must flow into the tunnel to Union. Whether that would improve safety, simplicity and speed through a delta junction is a good question?

What looks like a massive challenge is digging up the length of the present Bay St underground leg whereas equal or less digging/construction for a separate QQE loop would not only allow the present important connection to stay intact and use, operationally later it might prove far more flexible, caveats applied.

A huge factor being presumed, perhaps falsely, is continued vehicular traffic along QQ at that point.

Why is there the need? Pardon my glaring simplicity in asking that, but staring at Google satellite view, I was looking for other (mostly) surface loop (perhaps through the new GO bus station as a run through not loop), and a surface return back down to QQE...until realizing that as long as access to the Gardiner is maintained for vehicular traffic, most of the vehicular traffic that's running along QQ at that point can be re-directed, and a lot easier again than digging new tunnels for streetcars.

There's massive assumptions to all the equations being presented, and most of that is the sanctity of cars on QQ, and accommodating them in lieu of a flat junction for the streetcars....which brings me to another possibility: Rebuild the present streetcar underground curve @ Bay and QQ as a streetcar compound fly-over junction, (I'll try and find a diagram to post on this) or another variance, QQW remains as is through the present portal and curved tunnel north, but the QQE tracks remain on the surface, curve north on Bay, and then single ramps and portals are built either side of the present tunnel on Bay and join down to it and like direction tracks merge. This would render the present Ferry Station as two level, the lower remaining as is, the upper being on the present street. The challenge of needed extra platform space would still have to be addressed at Union, and Bay below Harbour would most likely be streetcar and pedestrian only....but why is the latter streetcar only area such a bad idea? Just like the King Pilot, delivery and service vehicles would still have access, as would access for locals via York and Yonge, and along the the QQ stretch to Bay, just not through the Bay and QQ intersection.

One of many ideas to simplify what's an almost impossibly expensive project otherwise. There's also the obvious QQE LRT passenger transfer points to the east of Yonge to lessen the transfer load at Union.

For the money the schemes presented so far would cost, and the massive imposition of construction time and costs on the area, something truly less disruptive and yielding much higher passenger carriage can be built elsewhere.

 

[Momo49]

Why would you add all of this complexity when the biggest cost and demand is at union station? This makes service into union worse in every way and you probably would save no more than $50M, which is chump change compared to the whole thing

 

[steveintoronto]

Why would you add all of this complexity when the biggest cost and demand is at union station? This makes service into union worse in every way and you probably would save no more than $50M, which is chump change compared to the whole thing

To get to the other side...

"Complexity" it seems, is a relative term for some.

Have you a simpler plan? Please, be my guest, present one. Every one I've seen is incredibly complex, expensive, will take a decade or more, will block Bay Street and add more construction onto Union for God knows how many more years and has no funding, and no agreement yet from anyone.

So go right ahead, present your easier plan...I'm dying to see this. And I've mentioned the load at Union, and also relieving it at other points along the line by distributing the load. I've also mentioned improving passenger space at the Union platform. I'll repeat all of that only once...You're obviously not reading.

See: https://stevemunro.ca/2019/03/05/waterfront-transit-reset-the-union-station-connection/

And btw: Where's your case for not making the juncture of Bay and QQ car-free save for access for deliveries and service vehicles? The QQ buildings between York and Yonge can be accessed from their ends some 500 metres or so from the Bay St intersection. Same for Bay from Harbour south.

Every other plan I've seen will dictate the closure of the junction for years anyway. Why not do the diversion now in a permanent way and allow for much easier streetcar access and a much more desirable pedestrian environment?

you probably would save no more than $50M

lol...you'd save a hell of a lot more than that doing surface run where possible.

 

[Neil]

Here's another option. Move the streetcar portal to Bay Street with the Y for QQE and QQW on the surface. The problem with that though is the interaction with vehicles at that intersection. So, put 2 vehicle lanes of QQ in a tunnel under the Bay-QQ intersection along with an underground T to the south to access the Harbour Square parking garage. Leave the 2 outside lanes of Bay north of QQ but they would be right turn only lanes.

 

[thettctransitfanatic]

During certain times of the day where the demand is lower, say overnight, the QQW LRT and QQE LRT should operate as just one interlined line, but it should spilt at Union at all other times

 

[BurlOak]

I think the end game should be both QQE and QQW going up Bay to City Hall (or more).
I don't recall, but is the elevation of the streetcar tracks the same as the subway?
How much easier would it be to push the streetcar straight through (maybe lowering the tracks a bit) vs. expanding the loop. (It likely causes less disruption to existing service as well). It would either go underground all, or go on surface north of Front.