Waterfront Transit Reset Phase 1 Study

[drum118]

What benefits do you see from a Bay streetcar line? Is that route particularly overcrowded?

It becomes the relief line for the Yonge Line from Front to Bloor.

A few ranking management team members thought it was time to bring back the Bay Line as it was a mistake to kill it in the first place.

I would go with the lanes on one side that would be move out to allow for a wider sidewalk than what there now.

 

[DirectionNorth]

What benefits do you see from a Bay streetcar line? Is that route particularly overcrowded?

It was the last trolley route to go - the Edmonton cars were kept a year longer on the Bay/Annette route than the others. The TTC clearly thinks that the route has something to it, at least, more than other routes. The Bay bus has a ridership of 10,500 in 2018, from Queen's Quay to Dupont. I think there's potential there.

Downtown Toronto has great E-W local (ie. streetcar) connections. However, outside of Spadina, Roncy, and Bathurst, there aren't really any N-S connections, the subway spacing being too wide. A streetcar down Bay would be local N-S rail transit for the center of the city.

 

[W. K. Lis]

It was the last trolley route to go - the Edmonton cars were kept a year longer on the Bay/Annette route than the others. The TTC clearly thinks that the route has something to it, at least, more than other routes. The Bay bus has a ridership of 10,500 in 2018, from Queen's Quay to Dupont. I think there's potential there.

Downtown Toronto has great E-W local (ie. streetcar) connections. However, outside of Spadina, Roncy, and Bathurst, there aren't really any N-S connections, the subway spacing being too wide. A streetcar down Bay would be local N-S rail transit for the center of the city.

Also provides better "local" service than buses. Especially, with all the taxis, delivery trucks, etc. blocking the curb lanes, the buses end up using only the left lanes anyways along Bay Street.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

What benefits do you see from a Bay streetcar line? Is that route particularly overcrowded?

It becomes the relief line for the Yonge Line from Front to Bloor.

A few ranking management team members thought it was time to bring back the Bay Line as it was a mistake to kill it in the first place.

I would go with the lanes on one side that would be move out to allow for a wider sidewalk than what there now.

It was the last trolley route to go - the Edmonton cars were kept a year longer on the Bay/Annette route than the others. The TTC clearly thinks that the route has something to it, at least, more than other routes. The Bay bus has a ridership of 10,500 in 2018, from Queen's Quay to Dupont. I think there's potential there.

Downtown Toronto has great E-W local (ie. streetcar) connections. However, outside of Spadina, Roncy, and Bathurst, there aren't really any N-S connections, the subway spacing being too wide. A streetcar down Bay would be local N-S rail transit for the center of the city.

Interesting. I'll admit that 10,500 riders per day is substantially more than I would have predicted, especially given its very short route length.

For comparison's purpose, the much longer Dufferin bus moves 27,200 people per day. So the Bay bus has a much higher density of passengers.

So, yeah, I would now agree that removing the Bay streetcar line was a mistake. That begs the question: does it make sense to reinstate it given the technical challenges?

South of Queen, Bay Street is dangerously overcrowded with pedestrians at peak hour, and this will only get worse with RER and the OL potentially doubling the amount of pedestrians in the area at peak hour (when compared to pre-COVID times). I know the increasing pedestrian volume in the area has been a concern of City Planning for some time now.

So the sidewalks need to be expanded along this segment of Bay. However, doing so would reduce the road to one lane in in direction, which from an operational POV, would make running streetcars in mixed traffic a nightmare.

Converting Bay Street into a transit/pedestrian mall between Front and Queen would be my preferable option. It'll make streetcar operations smooth and give pedestrians extra walking room. I'm sure that cars are a pretty small portion of the transport volume on this street, so this would make Bay a much more efficient street overall. Some provisions might have to be provided to allow for deliveries.

Another benefit of streetcar operations on Bay is that it would give passengers on the waterfront transit lines transfer-free access to the Downtown core. A single streetcar would take you from the Portlands all the way to the Eaton Centre. Given that well over 10,000 passengers at peak hour are anticipated to arrive at Union Station via the waterfront transit lines, this would provide for a notable decrease in crowding both at Union Station (due to lower transfer volumes) and along the Yonge/University Line.

IMO, the goal of streetcars on Bay might be a bit of a pipe dream right now. Retrofitting Union, laying new track and buying additional streetcars would all be very expensive, and we have a lot of competing transit interests in the city at the moment. Turning Bay into a bus-only street would be more politically and financially feasible.

 

[Jeff Morgan]

A question for those who know. Would it cost less to take the streetcar on the surface of bay from queens quay to queen or bloor and make bay a pedestrian, bike, and LRT road only than to complete the underground work necessary?

 

[DirectionNorth]

A question for those who know. Would it cost less to take the streetcar on the surface of bay from queens quay to queen or bloor and make bay a pedestrian, bike, and LRT road only than to complete the underground work necessary?

You mean to tunnel from Union to Queen VS surface from Queen's Quay to Queen?

I don't think tunneling north from Union can be done. Getting the streetcar under the subway is near impossible, and not worth it.

 

[tsm1072]

A question for those who know. Would it cost less to take the streetcar on the surface of bay from queens quay to queen or bloor and make bay a pedestrian, bike, and LRT road only than to complete the underground work necessary?

I think if you wanted streetcars on the surface, you would keep them underground until you get north of Lakeshore. You can have your portal just north of Lakeshore and have Bay north of Lakeshore be a northbound 1-way 1-lane street to maintain access to the CIBC complex. This also simplifies the Lakeshore-Bay St intersection and allows for a widened pedestrian area in front of the arena.

 

[Jeff Morgan]

You mean to tunnel from Union to Queen VS surface from Queen's Quay to Queen?

I don't think tunneling north from Union can be done. Getting the streetcar under the subway is near impossible, and not worth it.

I was thinking surface all of the way. As I understand it, there will be a lot of costs associated with expanding the underground tunnel from QQ to Union. Would making it a surface streetcar reduce the costs?

 

[Jeff Morgan]

I think if you wanted streetcars on the surface, you would keep them underground until you get north of Lakeshore. You can have your portal just north of Lakeshore and have Bay north of Lakeshore be a northbound 1-way 1-lane street to maintain access to the CIBC complex. This also simplifies the Lakeshore-Bay St intersection and allows for a widened pedestrian area in front of the arena.

Why keep it underground south of lakeshore?

 

[drum118]

A question for those who know. Would it cost less to take the streetcar on the surface of bay from queens quay to queen or bloor and make bay a pedestrian, bike, and LRT road only than to complete the underground work necessary?

If you are to tunnel north of Union loop, it needs to remain deep not only for unities in the area, but also the OL line on Queen.

There is a hue cost to run on Bay St either underground or on the surface, but the surface is a lot cheaper,

Any thought of running in mix traffic south of Queen is not worth it to the point you would be better off tunneling to north of Queen if you keep traffic on Bay. Even if you remove traffic 100%, you will have issues.

As someone who has push the surface route from day one, you have QQ to Queen Intersections being a pinch point and problem area. Lake Shore is the worse of all of them that you need crossing gates to stop traffic block the intersection.

Front intersection is only going to get worse as the GTHA grows, but the coming of RER that pedestrians will be worse than traffic.

With the growth been plan for on Bay St, today ridership will be a drop in the bucket as well on Dupont.

There are places in the US that has LRT for less than 10,000 today and would love to see that number.

As much as I hate to see it, it better to tunnel from QQ to north of Queen that reduce the the interference between traffic and pedestrians 100%.

If you are tunneling north of Union, you will have to start the ramp to the new Union Loop south of Lake Shore to allow for a new n-s station for Union. To do this would take the QQ to Union off line for at least 5-7 years.

What would help is to retain the loop along the lines as purposed, but don't know if it possible to have centre tracks to go north with a single track to off load on the east side of the centre track and loop over it to pickup up riders on the west side. Is there room to do it??? I know the east side does as more room was put there when the CIBC tower was built up to the overpass.

At the end of the day now do you loop north of Bloor using single end cars in place of fuel end cars that can use a stub track???

TTC sees too much foot traffic for QQ intersection to have tracks on the surface.

 

[sche]

I think if you wanted streetcars on the surface, you would keep them underground until you get north of Lakeshore. You can have your portal just north of Lakeshore and have Bay north of Lakeshore be a northbound 1-way 1-lane street to maintain access to the CIBC complex. This also simplifies the Lakeshore-Bay St intersection and allows for a widened pedestrian area in front of the arena.

Bay currently has a paved width of ~12.5-13m. Redesign it with 7m for streetcars, 3.5-4m for cycle track. the rest can go to sidewalks and trees. Get rid of cars from Bay at least south of Queen. Where local car access is required, do a King Street-style solution and allow cars on the tracks but force them to turn right at all intersections, or add a 1-lane-1-way roadway if there's enough space (in most places where there's currently just the 4 lane roadway, adding this would preclude trees/sidewalk expansion and it's probably better to just allow cars on streetcar tracks).

For the bit south of Lakeshore, I think the ideal solution would just to have tracks on the surface terminating at a station on top of the underground station at Queens Quay and use double-ended streetcars with doors on both sides, so that no loop is required and the stations at Queens Quay and Union can have center platforms.

 

[Northern Light]

We're wandering a bit OT..........

But for the sake of providing info...........I just had a look.

Bay from Front St. to Queen St only has one direct vehicle access to a building, the St. Regis.

However, Temperance St west of Bay is currently one way from Bay, and does have access to buildings located on that street; though the street does have a connection at Sheppard St; and the direction should be reversible.

So, I think the only limiting issue for removing vehicle access to Bay in the area in question is probably the hotel.

 

[EnviroTO]

It is great to see this level of focus on the public realm as part of this project. I was thinking the street level would end up much as it is now on Bay and to think any of these options are coming our way is a good sign. Hopefully they sign contracts and spend money soon so this isn't another of our many historic paper based exercises.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

It is great to see this level of focus on the public realm as part of this project. I was thinking the street level would end up much as it is now on Bay and to think any of these options are coming our way is a good sign. Hopefully they sign contracts and spend money soon so this isn't another of our many historic paper based exercises.

Every single project we embark on should have a focus on public realm. Slowly but surely, we’d chip away at Torontos shabby pubic realm.

I still can’t believe they reconstructed Ossington without changing anything about the design.

 

[Northern Light]

Every single project we embark on should have a focus on public realm. Slowly but surely, we’d chip away at Torontos shabby pubic realm.

I still can’t believe they reconstructed Ossington without changing anything about the design.

Are you meaning the bit discussed here?

Road Safety & Vision Zero Plan

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