‘Waterfront reset’ examines way to extend transit to new neighbourhoods along the lakeshore
“My people are screaming bloody murder for better transit at the doors,” says an Etobicoke councillor of the highrise Humber Bay Shores community.
Thestar.com
May 25, 2016
By Ben Spurr
Unless something changes, the numbers predict a gloomy future for transportation along Toronto’s waterfront.
In the next 25 years, the lakeshore area south of Queen St. is expected to add nearly 280,000 residents and 190,000 new jobs.
The number of public transit projects being built along the waterfront to serve them? Zero.
It’s a future city planners hope to avoid. That’s why on Wednesday night, the city launched public consultations on the “Waterfront Transit Reset,” a joint effort between the TTC, Waterfront Toronto and the city planning office to jump-start transportation expansion along the lake.
Consultation documents obtained by the Star in advance of their release online show the options being considered include an LRT in its own right-of-way on Lake Shore Blvd. West and a pedestrian tunnel from Queens Quay to Union Station that could include underground bike lanes and public art.
The goal of the reset, approved by council last November, is to provide options for a continuous east-west connection to serve areas such as Liberty Village, South Etobicoke, Fort York and CityPlace, all of which have seen unprecedented waves of development in recent years but no transit to match.
“I think in an ideal world, a lot of these projects would have been advanced a long time ago,” said Jennifer Keesmaat, Toronto’s chief planner.
“We’ve approved the growth. In many instances we’ve already built it, but the transit has been lagging ... Suffice it to say, we need to catch up. We desperately need to catch up.”
The area covered by the reset is bounded by south Etobicoke’s Long Branch GO station in the west, Queen St. and the Queensway to the north, and Woodbine Ave. in the east. For the public consultation, planners divided the area into four segments and presented a series of possible transit alignments for each.
In the west, the boldest option would convert the portion of the 501 streetcar route that runs in mixed traffic along Lake Shore into an LRT line with its own dedicated right-of-way.
Farther east, a connection could be made between the Queensway streetcar right-of-way and the 509 Harbourfront terminus at the Exhibition GO Station, possibly by running light rail along Colborne Lodge Dr. or Dufferin St.
Councillor Mark Grimes (Ward 6, Etobicoke-Lakeshore), whose ward includes the Humber Bay Shores area, where towering condos have replaced a derelict motel strip, said his residents are demanding more transit. He supports creating a dedicated light rail line on Lake Shore.
“My people are screaming bloody murder for better transit at the doors,” he said, estimating that TTC express buses to ferry people downtown now take up to half an hour to drive one kilometre in morning gridlock. “The time for talk is over. They want action.”
The most complex portion of the reset is downtown, an area that includes the long-sought East Bayfront LRT, a line that would run 1.6 km from Bay St. to Parliament St. Although designs for the project were approved in 2010, it hasn’t been built.
A major obstacle to its completion is the $520-million cost, much of which would be eaten up by the price tag of increasing the capacity of the 509 Harbourfront streetcar tunnel from Queens Quay to Union Station.
One potential solution included in the consultation would actually remove transit lines - the current tunnel’s streetcar tracks could be torn up and replaced with a 500-metre underground walkway that could include bike lanes, a pedestrian path or even an airport-style moving walkway.
Keesmaat said that, although it was important to study all options, from her perspective, the walkway idea is “more reasonable” than tunnelling under downtown, and shaving down costs could make it easier to win funding for the East Bayfront LRT.
The cost of the entire waterfront reset has yet to be determined, but it’s sure to be in the billions of dollars. Finding that funding could be a tough sell to a city council that has recently prioritized transit projects outside of the downtown, such as the Scarborough subway.
Keesmaat said it would be unwise to pit one area of the city against another, and “the reality is, getting transit right in the downtown core is going to be critical to our future success, as is getting transit right throughout the rest of the city.”
The results of the consultation will go before Mayor John Tory’s executive committee next month as part of a larger report expected to set Toronto’s long-term transit priorities.
OPTIONS UNDER CONSIDERATION
Bay St. tunnel
A big question mark is what to do with the streetcar tunnel that runs from Queens Quay into Union Station. The consultation documents detail no less than nine options, including expanding the tunnel to accommodate rail traffic from a future East Bayfront LRT, or building a new underground loop. Those options could be prohibitively expensive, however. A cheaper option would be to replace the existing streetcar connection with an underground pedestrian walkway, bike path, or even moving walkway. Planners took the tunnel under Amsterdam Central Station, pictured above, as one inspiration.
Segment 1: Long Branch to Humber River
The boldest option under consideration is upgrading the existing streetcar line on Lake Shore Blvd. West, which runs in mixed traffic, to an LRT line with its own right-of-way. Another alternative would see the TTC simply add service to the streetcar line and connecting north-south bus routes. Running an LRT along The Queensway was also considered, but the option was discarded because it wouldn’t provide links to GO and MiWay service.
Segment 2: Humber River to Strachan Ave.
This section includes the high-growth area of Liberty Village, currently served by the overloaded King streetcar. The goal of planners is to connect the LRT-like streetcar line on the Queensway in the west to the area south of King in the east. This could be done a number of ways, including by running the light rail line south on Colborne Lodge Dr. to Lake Shore Blvd. An LRT alignment to the north of the rail corridor was dismissed as too costly and disruptive.
Segment 3: Strachan Ave. to Parliament Ave.
This area includes the Cityplace and Fort York neighbourhoods, which have seen astounding growth in the past decade. Existing transit includes streetcars on Spadina Ave., Bathurst St., and the 509 Harbourfront, but south of King St. there is no continuous east-west connection. One possible solution would be an LRT line along Lake Shore Blvd. West, connecting to the 509 Harbourfront at the foot of Bathurst St.
Segment 4: Parliament St. to Woodbine Ave.
