Toronto Lower Don Lands Redevelopment | ?m | ?s | Waterfront Toronto

The historic crane was repainted a year or so ago, looks like it needs a refresh!

I'm almost positive they only painted the base, which looks good when I saw it today. The rest has been rusty looking since the news of the repainting last year.
 
Destination Playground Pavilion

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The south part of Cherry still looks a pretty long way from being opened up.

There are very few pedestrians there who aren't on the totally separated multi-use path. It's actually a pretty safe intersection despite Lake Shore being basically a highway there.
 
We biked out to Cherry Beach on the weekend with the toddler and he loved going through the yellow bridge. But the biggest treat was that the lift bridge was open and a couple of ships went through, including a barge with an excavator on it.

The little paved trail from Cherry St to the parking lot and playground is a nice little improvement too.
 
We biked out to Cherry Beach on the weekend with the toddler and he loved going through the yellow bridge. But the biggest treat was that the lift bridge was open and a couple of ships went through, including a barge with an excavator on it.

The little paved trail from Cherry St to the parking lot and playground is a nice little improvement too.
Yes, that trail along Unwin is good, built by CreateTO to link to the Sports Field (and the playground!)
 
We biked out to Cherry Beach on the weekend with the toddler and he loved going through the yellow bridge. But the biggest treat was that the lift bridge was open and a couple of ships went through, including a barge with an excavator on it.

The little paved trail from Cherry St to the parking lot and playground is a nice little improvement too.
I look forward to going down there, but I'm still unsure what construction is like just north of that area. I haven't been to the spit or its adjacent trails in awhile, but love going there every time. It's peaceful, away from the concrete jungle, but still very close.
I hope we get some good wayfinding and informational signage for the ecological efforts here. And well, to way find of course! Although it's a far-fetched idea, I really don't see the problem in creating a small viewing area by the water with a few tower viewers and assorted furnishings, not unlike what you see on the Islands, but executed better. This area will be very well used once it's settled into the urban fabric, and we should capitalize on that.
 
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Yes, that trail along Unwin is good, built by CreateTO to link to the Sports Field (and the playground!)
I play sports every week at that field and that trail has been such a huge improvement in terms of the experience of getting to/from that field via the TTC (and presumably via bike share as well). A very underrated improvement.
 
That's the size of Villiers Island. I don't get the idea that we just gob a few hundred extra hectares on to lower the density.

Liberty Village's density would be a lot lower if we added the CNE site to it.

Why don't we just add the entire Don Valley to St.Jamestown?

This is a discrete block of land, bounded by water on 4 sides (hence 'Island') The density calculation I offer is reasonable and fair. This site is not sitting at the intersection of Lines 1 and 2.

The comparisons I made to Liberty Village and St.Jamestown are on point, and their density is calculated in the same way.
What's very frustrating is that OL goes nearby and we could (and probably still can if the big bucks are found) could have a relatively simple shallow station there.

But, there are also at least 6 tracks of regional rail which also pass Cherry, which should have trains every few minutes between them. We should be planning enough space for an island platform (Stouffville line makes sense as it is shorter), I also personally think Barrie trains should be taken east to terminate at East Harbour on their east end rather than at Union (or even worse Spadina). I personally think putting two terminating platforms west of the Don (connected to EH with a nice ped bridge at the east end) would be the solution here. That gives you two good options for lines which can provide a combined service of a train about every 3 mins in the peak.
 
What's very frustrating is that OL goes nearby and we could (and probably still can if the big bucks are found) could have a relatively simple shallow station there.

But, there are also at least 6 tracks of regional rail which also pass Cherry, which should have trains every few minutes between them. We should be planning enough space for an island platform (Stouffville line makes sense as it is shorter), I also personally think Barrie trains should be taken east to terminate at East Harbour on their east end rather than at Union (or even worse Spadina). I personally think putting two terminating platforms west of the Don (connected to EH with a nice ped bridge at the east end) would be the solution here. That gives you two good options for lines which can provide a combined service of a train about every 3 mins in the peak.

Essentially, I concur. I don't think transit alone is sufficient to serve a community of very high density, but it certainly is a pre-requisite.

IF we're going to build a very dense node 800M - 1.2km from the nearest rapid transit, we need to create a better linkage here.

I'm not sure that I view a Cherry Station at the GO/OL corridor as entirely sufficient, but it certainly would be better than what is currently not planned.

It takes the distance down to ~550m from Cherry + Commissioners.

The exasperating thing to me is that these things should be planned in an integrated way. We're not doing that, we've settled on where the line will go, first, then we randomly add density ~1km from that line.

Not the way to plan.
 
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Talked to some Waterfront Toronto people this morning. Looks like they are aiming for an October 18 opening of the Cherry Street North and Commissioners Street bridges. Given the visible progress recently on those fronts, I daresay they'll hit that target. Twelve more weeks, and my bike will never have to deal with that Villiers detour ever again...
 

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