Public Transit around the waterfront area

[ten_eighteen]

It seems to me that once you go south of King street, the TTC becomes a little less convenient to take. There is no streetcar on front street, and I am unsure of the frequency of the one that runs along queens quay.

Since there are a ton of condos along the waterfront, and also by the Ex (Fort York, and the Lakeshore area around there), does anyone have any experience living there and how the day to day public transit is like? I am curious as to how convenient it is, or whether most waterfront dwellers mainly drive?

 

[unimaginative2]

I live on Front, and public transit is pretty lousy. To go east-west, I pretty much always walk up to King to take the streetcar. Unfortunately, it isn't very frequent outside the morning peaks. To go north-south, I can either walk to Union Station or St. Andrew (8-10 minutes, depending on speed) or take the extremely slow, infrequent and unreliable Spadina streetcar. Two-thirds of them don't go south of King, so I've waited as long as half an hour.

 

[EnviroTO]

The streetcar on Queens Quay is very frequent to Spadina and all the way to CNE in the summer. In the winter the section between Spadina and the CNE is not as frequent. Eventually Lakeshore cars will use Queens Quay to get to Union when the Waterfront West Streetcar project is complete. At Spadina and Bremner the streetcar is frequent as well heading to Union or Spadina stations. I don't think they would predominantly drive. The driveways of the condos on Queens Quay and Cityplace don't seem very busy for buildings with that many units... especially HVE which has five towers but little traffic.

 

[ten_eighteen]

hmm... good to know. That seems unfortunate that public transit is that lousy around the area... and from the sounds of it, both of you live either around spadina or just east of there.

That makes me think that as you go further west, up to fort york, public transit would be REALLY bad? I tried looking at the TTC route map, and it looks like there are pretty much only two options - one streetcar that goes up bathurst, and another that eventually heads to union station.

 

[rbt]

That makes me think that as you go further west, up to fort york, public transit would be REALLY bad?

No, not really bad when Fleet Street actually has streetcars on it (construction at the moment). Bathurst is a pretty frequent 24/7 route. Ossington drops down Strachan and has decent service as well. Queens Quay between Bathurst and Spadina has really bad service (20 minute on a good day).

Getting specifically to Union Station is annoying but the Eaton Centre can be reasonably quick.

 

[roch5220]

Too bad the 'expo' bid wasn't a go ahead, atleast you the area would get that crazy submerged LRT line.

Dido for the olympics.

 

[EnviroTO]

That makes me think that as you go further west, up to fort york, public transit would be REALLY bad? I tried looking at the TTC route map, and it looks like there are pretty much only two options - one streetcar that goes up bathurst, and another that eventually heads to union station.

The Fleet St reconstruction will occur in the fall. That will make the whole route from the CNE to Union isolated in its own right-of-way. Once the condos are populated along Fleet St I would expect 509 service to increase. The 509 at its worst runs every 20 minutes and at rush hour less than 10. As long as some fool doesn't turn a car across the path of a streetcar the timing will vary no more than 5 minutes. The 509 goes from the CNE to Union Station in just over 10 minutes. The 510 south of King is less frequent than north of King but is scheduled to arrive every 10 minutes or less all day long. The 511 also runs every 10 minutes or less all day long.

 

[drum118]

TTC just approved the contract to hire a consulting firm to start the EA study of the FORT YORK LRT.

It will look at a route alone Front St.

It will have a major impact on Union Station as well the Western Waterfront extension.

Fleet ROW may get push back to 2008 as hydro has yet to start their work and TTC is doing major track work now by tearing up the joints and welding them as well placing new concrete roadbed.

Eastern section http://www.towaterfront.ca/dbdocs//463f1d80b69d9.pdf