Waterfront Transit Reset Phase 1 Study

[polesingularity]

2.57... billion? BILLION? For 3.8 km of an LRT?! Are they making the tracks out of solid gold?

 

[milkycontent]

2.57... billion? BILLION? For 3.8 km of an LRT?! Are they making the tracks out of solid gold?

You have to assume the majority of that is being eaten up by the union station loop redo and new portal. Right?

 

[innsertnamehere]

That would be for the full, 5km project to East Harbour, and includes the tunnel rebuild and public realm elements along Queens Quay East, right?

It makes sense as theres a lot of extras involved through the public realm improvements and the tunnel rebuild is ridiculously expensive.. but still, damn. Construction inflation is a b****

 

[Towered]

That would be for the full, 5km project to East Harbour, and includes the tunnel rebuild and public realm elements along Queens Quay East, right?

It makes sense as theres a lot of extras involved through the public realm improvements and the tunnel rebuild is ridiculously expensive.. but still, damn. Construction inflation is a b****

Delaying it further however will not make the project any cheaper or less essential.

 

[DSC]

Delaying it further however will not make the project any cheaper or less essential.

Indeed, and we all remember the WT mantra of "Transit First' when the development of Queens Quay East was starting over 15 years ago!

 

[evandyk]

Indeed, and we all remember the WT mantra of "Transit First' when the development of Queens Quay East was starting over 15 years ago!

It's not like in the interim they've built a few office towers and hundreds (thousands?) of units of now car-dependent housing right on the proposed route....

 

[DKsan]

2.57... billion? BILLION? For 3.8 km of an LRT?! Are they making the tracks out of solid gold?

They've broken it down in the report, particular for Scenario 3, which is to split the project into three isolated parts:

• $932 million just to re-do the Union Loop, which, fine, if it's costing $1.5 billion just to expand Bloor-Yonge, this makes even more sense considering how much stuff is around the loop station
• $1.3 billion for the segment from the tunnel portal all the way to Villier Loops, which includes re-doing the portal, the Queen Quay Docks stations, and the Yonge Street Loop. I wonder if this also includes the QQE landscaping. EDIT: Yes, according to attachment 2, the cost includes the road and public realm improvements.
• $337 million for the Cherry extension underneath the USRC and Gardiner

Notably, it's suggesting they do that second part FIRST so that there is interim through service while the Union Loop is under construction.

 

[DKsan]

Oh this is interesting. They might try and segment based on different projects. The key one is the Parliament slip fill; basically if they get money now, they'll try and coordinate the right-of-way construction with that project...which has already started. This is attachment 2, where they have operation plans as well.

 

[crs1026]

^Good to see this going forward. Of note is the table showing that the current spending request will double the total approved project spending, which will total $135M. The point being, if Council isn't serious about this, it's time to pull the plug. If Council is serious, well, maybe it's "fish or cut bait" time.

- Paul

 

[duty free]

is this going to proper light rail or just streetcars in a ROW headed East?

 

[reinventingthewheel]

is this going to proper light rail or just streetcars in a ROW headed East?

It is proposed to share the same streetcar rolling stock, I believe the choice to label it LRT is to differentiate from the majority of streetcar lines which do not have a dedicated ROW.

There may be some other historical reason, I’ve only followed this project for about a year.

 

[Amare]

is this going to proper light rail or just streetcars in a ROW headed East?

It's Streetcars in a ROW, the exact same thing you see on Queens Quay West right now.

 

[duty free]

It is proposed to share the same streetcar rolling stock, I believe the choice to label it LRT is to differentiate from the majority of streetcar lines which do not have end-to-end dedicated ROW.

There may be some other historical reason, I’ve only followed this project for about a year.

It's Streetcars in a ROW, the exact same thing you see on Queens Quay West right now.

that's what I figured. meh. they shouldn't label it LRT. I get that the TTC streetcars in a ROW have used that nomenclature in the past, but we now have LRT's being built and being given the distinction of being a "subway Line". it creates unnecessary confusion. they should just say this is a streetcar extension or a new 500 line.

 

[EnviroTO]

They don't plan on assigning it a roundel and calling it rapid transit. Despite it having its own ROW it will have many intersections because this is not a suburban boulevard like Finch or Eglinton. I don't think the plan blocks a single street from crossing the ROW and there will be many pedestrian conflicts. You couldn't have an at grade rapid transit in this environment because it is too urban... it would need to be elevated or below ground.

 

[nfitz]

There may be some other historical reason, I’ve only followed this project for about a year.

The western portion along Queens Quay was built as the Harbourfront LRT. And the 509 was originally the Spadina LRT, before the name spooked some people, with the media showing pictures of RT trains running up Spadina.