Waterfront Transit Reset Phase 1 Study

[GameOnBrad]

Do we know if this intended to be more of a streetcar like St. Clair, or more of an LRT like Eglinton?

It will be an extension of the existing Waterfront Streetcar tracks that already exist for the west side.

Waterfront East Transit

Waterfront East Transit is a higher-order transit service that will operate along Toronto’s eastern waterfront. The project spans approximately 3.8 kilometres from Union Station to Ookwemin Minising. A new dedicated surface right-of-way will be built along Queens Quay East to Cherry Street, and...

www.toronto.ca

 

[nfitz]

It will be an extension of the existing Lakeshore Streetcar tracks that already exist for the west side.

No - the Lakeshore tracks are all in mixed traffic. Perhaps you meant Queens Quay? It's just like Queens Quay and Cherry. All on the side.

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

No - the Lakeshore tracks are all in mixed traffic. Perhaps you meant Queens Quay? It's just like Queens Quay and Cherry. All on the side.

Wrong. By "Lakeshore" they mean along the shore of the lake.

See https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/streets-parking-transportation/transit-in-toronto/transit-expansion/waterfront-transit-network-expansion/waterfront-east-lrt-extension/

 

[GameOnBrad]

My bad for saying "Lakeshore". Yes, it's along Queens Quay but the city calls it the Waterfront East LRT.

 

[nfitz]

My bad for saying "Lakeshore". Yes, it's along Queens Quay but the city calls it the Waterfront East LRT.

To confound it, the Waterfront West LRT (by some proposals at least) doesn't run along Queen Quay West. And is mostly in the centre of the street. I doubt we'll ever see that one though.

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

To confound it, the Waterfront West LRT (by some proposals at least) doesn't run along Queen Quay West. And is mostly in the centre of the street. I doubt we'll ever see that one though.

Diagrams show the right-of-way is on the south side of Queens Quay East (east of Yonge Street, Queens Quay becomes "East", not "West"). Unless you have access to more up-to-date information.

 

[xmyth_]

I totally thought that the Broadview extension would be the very first thing done in East Harbour, if for no other reason than to do a bus all the way south into the port lands via EH connection.

I still need someone with the brain of an engineer and the soul of a kindergarten teacher to explain to me how the streetcar is get under the rail bridge on Cherry street to tie to the loop.

The area under there is already prone to flooding, and they’re going to have to go deep to slide a streetcar under to get south. But also, with the length of the streetcar that slope is gonna have to start back near Le Beau, no? So how will the loop work? Or is that just gone entirely? (Ontario Line is already going 40,000 leagues under ground to get by the underground Green P lot on Distillery Lane, right?)

Also, I need someone with the heart of a peach to explain how and where the proposed Cherry ramp for the Gardiner is going.

I’ve seen less complicated tangles in my box of SCSI cables from 1992. Yeah I said it

 

[nfitz]

Diagrams show the right-of-way is on the south side of Queens Quay East (east of Yonge Street, Queens Quay becomes "East", not "West"). Unless you have access to more up-to-date information.

The one proposal is to use that. Another was is to use Bremner, Fort York, and either along the south edge of Fort York or Fleet Street to Exhibition Loop. While there's currently no streetcar ROW on Bremner, both the unused Fort York ROW and Fleet is in the centre of the street. It's pretty dead these days - who knows if they'll ever revive it, and what route they'll use. It certainly won't be the kind of quick to the west end transit they want if they stick to Harbourfront, when they can effectively build an LRT along Bremner with much less frequent stops.

Personally I keep saying they should it north of the tracks, and simply run it along Front Street from Bay (rather than into the current streetcar loop), and then the old Front Street Extension alignment west of Bathurst - though perhaps the Ontario Line has sterilized that option - but could probably cross over to Manitoba Drive near Strachan, just east of the Ontario Line portal. But no one takes that seriously except me.

 

[DSCToronto]

I totally thought that the Broadview extension would be the very first thing done in East Harbour, if for no other reason than to do a bus all the way south into the port lands via EH connection.

I still need someone with the brain of an engineer and the soul of a kindergarten teacher to explain to me how the streetcar is get under the rail bridge on Cherry street to tie to the loop.

The area under there is already prone to flooding, and they’re going to have to go deep to slide a streetcar under to get south. But also, with the length of the streetcar that slope is gonna have to start back near Le Beau, no? So how will the loop work? Or is that just gone entirely? (Ontario Line is already going 40,000 leagues under ground to get by the underground Green P lot on Distillery Lane, right?)

Also, I need someone with the heart of a peach to explain how and where the proposed Cherry ramp for the Gardiner is going.

I’ve seen less complicated tangles in my box of SCSI cables from 1992. Yeah I said it

There is lots of info about how the proposed streetcar tracks can go through the rail berm at Cherry on WT website (or used to be). There will be a new tunnel and there will not be loop there for a start. (For what it's worth, I have never seen the road there flooded either.)

 

[StreetcarRider]

I totally thought that the Broadview extension would be the very first thing done in East Harbour, if for no other reason than to do a bus all the way south into the port lands via EH connection.

I still need someone with the brain of an engineer and the soul of a kindergarten teacher to explain to me how the streetcar is get under the rail bridge on Cherry street to tie to the loop.

The area under there is already prone to flooding, and they’re going to have to go deep to slide a streetcar under to get south. But also, with the length of the streetcar that slope is gonna have to start back near Le Beau, no? So how will the loop work? Or is that just gone entirely? (Ontario Line is already going 40,000 leagues under ground to get by the underground Green P lot on Distillery Lane, right?)

Also, I need someone with the heart of a peach to explain how and where the proposed Cherry ramp for the Gardiner is going.

I’ve seen less complicated tangles in my box of SCSI cables from 1992. Yeah I said it

While neither an engineer nor a kindergarten teacher, here are a bunch of Waterfront Toronto slides from 2022 about the plan from QQE to north of the tracks on Cherry St as of that time. In short, the Cherry loop is eliminated and replaced with a marsh to handle flooding:
https://www.waterfrontoronto.ca/sit...C Cherry North_Schematic Design (reduced).pdf

Such a development would obviously impact the workhorse 504 line, where at least half of the streetcars currently use the Distillery loop as a terminus.

 

[JSF-1]

Ok so what number do you think this route will get? Come one 513 East Bayfront, it's unused and it's the number I picked for it in my fantasy proposal. Or do we bring back the 514? or do we just change up how the Streetcars are numbered all together?

 

[nfitz]

Ok so what number do you think this route will get? Come one 513 East Bayfront, it's unused and it's the number I picked for it in my fantasy proposal. Or do we bring back the 514? or do we just change up how the Streetcars are numbered all together?

Back in the 2006 list (still on the Waterfront Toronto website) they had several routes, including extending the 507, and the 514 (a truncated version of this ran from 2016 to 2018 on Cherry Street).

I found this map floating around the Internet. It looks like it's of the same vintage as the 2006 report, but I don't know the full provenance. Looks a bit unrealistic - though it does reflect the final 514 alignment on Cherry. It was referenced in the Waterfront Toronto's 2010 "Lower Don Lands Infrastructure Master Plan and Keating Channel Precinct Environmental Study Report"

 

[generalcanada]

Back in the 2006 list (still on the Waterfront Toronto website) they had several routes, including extending the 507, and the 514 (a truncated version of this ran from 2016 to 2018 on Cherry Street).

View attachment 725563

View attachment 725564

I found this map floating around the Internet. It looks like it's of the same vintage as the 2006 report, but I don't know the full provenance. Looks a bit unrealistic - though it does reflect the final 514 alignment on Cherry. It was referenced in the Waterfront Toronto's 2010 "Lower Don Lands Infrastructure Master Plan and Keating Channel Precinct Environmental Study Report"

View attachment 725567

RIP bremner line. fully dead with the new streetcar loop

 

[drum118]

Back in the 2006 list (still on the Waterfront Toronto website) they had several routes, including extending the 507, and the 514 (a truncated version of this ran from 2016 to 2018 on Cherry Street).

View attachment 725563

View attachment 725564

I found this map floating around the Internet. It looks like it's of the same vintage as the 2006 report, but I don't know the provenance. Looks very unrealistic - though it reflects the final 514 alignment on Cherry.
View attachment 725567

A lot of options how QQE would operate down the road surface during the master planning and years later. The 2nd map shows some of them.

Route 517 and the plan for it was removed by the city well over a decade as it was beyond the 50 year view of the city for the City Master Plan. TTC removed back in 2007 the Lake Shore Line East line when the province wanted the EA Master Plan broken down into 3 packages. The Lake Shore East line would have connect to the Queen and Kingston Rd lines.

There was a tough of an line from Broadview Station to Union as well to the Ex. Same goes for the 501

There are a lot of options how QQ lines offer better network operation for the system. The east-west bypass of Union still can be had first as well used as well once Union is on Line since it will take years to do.

The Bremner Line has never made sense and it goes way back to the 90's or later before I came involved in transit.

As for Union Loop, The CIBC towers are set back as there is a 50 foot tunnel between them and the current loop to allow the loop to be expanded and connect to both towers. That tunnel was dug during the construction of the first tower.

 

[drum118]

RIP bremner line. fully dead with the new streetcar loop

Nope as TTC still has it in their master plan with provision to happen at a later date.

You realize there is a Bremner Line tunnel in place under the Scotiabank arena that only requires a hole punch into the existing loop area today. The portal was to be east of York but it will have to be west of York now considering what takes place there during games play in Toronto.