At the June 18 TTC meeting, a report on the Supplementary Agenda recommends that the Commission approve the concept for the portion of the Waterfront West LRT between Union Station and Exhibition Place. The linked document is the full report including illustrations.
The preferred route from Union Station (which itself must be expanded to accommodate increased streetcar traffic from the eastern and western waterfront lines) runs:
- south in the existing tunnel to the end of the railway viaduct,
- west through a new tunnel under the Air Canada Centre Galleria, under an office building now under construction at York and Bremner, and under Bremner itself to emerge in a portal near Simcoe Street,
- via Bremner to Bathurst where the street name changes to Fort York Boulevard,
- via Fort York Blvd. to its crossing under the Gardiner Expressway,
- via the land under the Gardiner and a former railway underpass under Strachan Avenue to merge with the existing Exhibition Loop trackage.
An alternative route via Fort York Blvd. all the way to Fleet and the existing Bathurst/Harbourfront route tracks is the less-desired alternative.
The report discusses the capacity problems at Bathurst/Fleet/Lake Shore where the long cycle times limit the number of transit movements per hour. This has been a long-standing problem at a supposedly transit-priority location.
Changing the route as described above is expected to shave considerable travel time off of the run from southern Etobicoke into Union Station. At this point, the WWLRT route west of Dufferin is still under study (as part of a south Parkdale overall review), but the TTC is looking at routing some service from 501 Queen and 504 King into Union via Dufferin Street and the new WWLRT.
The TTC will send this proposal to Metrolinx for inclusion in its grab-bag of regional transit schemes.
Steve Munro 
It should be noted that Bremner Blvd. outside the Rogers Centre at Rees St. is a hidden overpass, as it is part of the stadium’s loading dock (so running an LRT along that part of the street will probably require structural reinforcement). As for closer to Union Station, I assume that the Galleria would have to be destroyed and replaced if the cut and cover method is used. Back in the 1980s however if I am not mistaken, Bremner which was originally going to be named The Esplanade, would have run along the north end of the Postal Building and which of course would have eliminated the engineering nightmare that the Commission will now have to face. Either that or the commission will have to use tunnel boring machinery. And as for the Harbourfront LRT terminal at Union subway Station, I assume that additional platform capacity will be made to accomodate the new longer LRVs and additional passenger traffic.
Steve: You weren’t paying attention. Provision for the Bremner tunnel already exists in the buildings through/under which it will pass.
LikeLike
Although I’m glad to see further movement on the WWLRT, One question I have is, aren’t there Exhibition Place structures in the way of the Under Gardener alignment? There are two garage/warehouse structures built in to the Gardener North of ‘the rock’, just West of the Strachan stop. Who has jurisdiction there?
Steve: Look at Exhibit 4 in the linked report. It clearly shows the alignment passing north of the buildings you mention.
LikeLike
This is totally unacceptable.
One thing I’ve learned from going to EA meetings is that their scope is limited and if you want to effect significant change you have to deal with it at Commission meetings when EAs are being considered. I can live with that. Our elected officials are selected democratically and should be making the big decisions.
However, often it seems the important reports, like this one, often appear at the last minute, leaving little chance for an observer to find out about it. I check the website on Monday seeing if there was anything I was interested in at the next meeting, and this wasn’t on the list.
Steve: Yes, this is a rather odd report because there is no reference anywhere to an EA. I am suspicious that this pay be a proposal that does not trigger the requirements of the new EA machinery, but have to check into this.
LikeLike
seems to me that the under-Gardiner alignment pretty much nails down the likelihood of perpetual retention of the expressway, since taking it down would also impede the LRT for months if not years.
LikeLike
In the plans and discussions is the Bremner tunnel going to have a station/stop for the Skydome (aka Rogers Centre) and/or the MTCC? I may have missed that somewhere (as I did the entire tunnel several months ago and apparently I’m not the only one).
Steve: At this point, it’s just alignment options, not detailed stop design. Clearly, Bremner east of Spadina needs to be redesigned and with that will come stop location(s).
I like the under the Gardiner routing rather than Fleet St. as I think we should resign ourselves to the fact that the expressway in the sky, especially the western end will be with us for a while yet.
I know this is preliminary but will the Bathurst tracks intersect the WWLRT tracks? My thinking there is that if Bathurst was to be converted to a transit r-o-w from Queen south. There’s plenty of room, except for the bridge, which I believe is supposed to be rebuilt real soon now. An additional routing could include Queen and Bathurst to Union/Exhibition and west when that develops. The Wolseley loop is just north of Queen.
Steve: The bridge is being rebuilt starting this fall. The Bathurst and Bremner tracks will cross at grade (a similar crossing will exist at Spadina). Bathurst will have reserved lanes from Front Street south. There has been no discussion of the area from Front to Queen, and of course Wolseley Loop lies in the narrower part of Bathurst north of Queen where reserved lanes are impractical.
I’m being a bit selfish here, when the 511 was diverted to Union during Fleet St. constuction it was very convenient way to and from Union Stn. and the Lakeshore for those of us along Bathurst.
LikeLike
Is the Bremner thing part of the WWLRT? I was at the Don Mills LRT open house last night at the DM station, the map wasn’t 100% clear, but it seemed to be above/north of the wwlrt/509. The commission can be confusing at times. Have you ever seen Mihevc come at any of these open houses/EA/meetings?
Steve: Yes, it’s the way the WWLRT will reach Union Station. Read the report which has all of the details.
As for Commissioners at meetings, both Mihevc and Adam Giambrone have attended various meetings, but they don’t go to every one. Partly this is in deference to local councillors.
LikeLike
With a lot of sharing of power and tracks with other lines (501, 511, 509), I assume the WWLRT line will be the only TC line not using a pantograph? Will the cars on this line be double ended and have doors on both sides?
Steve: WWLRT is part of the “city” system and will run cars from the “city” fleet — single ended, single-sided. As for pantographs, the eventual conversion to this mode is a very long term project for the existing system.
LikeLike
Seems like they’ve been using CLRVs in the renders. Are there suggestions they want to run inner-city streetcars on the Bremner line in addition to Transit-City LRVs?
Steve: I think this report was thrown together very, very quickly and they used the images they had. You may notice also that those are rather slim CLRVs. Narrow gauge, maybe?
LikeLike
I see that they are pressing for an under the Gardiner option with the nice green ROW in the picture. Streetcar tracks using grass instead of concrete looked very nice, but the fact remains this will be an added argument to keep that very ugly freeway in place.
I have concerns about falling chunks of concrete from the Gardiner falling on LRVs and overhead. Is there any options on rehablitating the Gardiner for this purpose? (I can’t believe I asked that!)
What about capacity on the Yonge line? This is a general concern in terms of Transit City on the already overcrowded subway system.
The only option that the TTC has that will make the WWLRT work is under the Gardiner. In due time the WWLRT will move more people per hour then the Gardiner above. Feels like a double edged sword…
Steve: Capacity on the Yonge line is unrelated to the WWLRT as most through traffic between them will tend to be counter-peak.
LikeLike
Who’s bizarre idea was it to put “FORT YORK” in the rendered rollsigns? There will never be a loop at this location! They even put it in the rear rollsign, giving me visions of double-ended cars, although that’s also something never to be seen at this location! (At least this is better than those stolen and horribly mangled 3D renderings of ALRVs from the Cherry Street documents…)
LikeLike
If they do put a LRT under the Gardiner, they better do any re-construction and repairs to the Gardiner now than later.
Fantasy: Too bad we can’t paint or sculpture the pillars to look like tree trunks and the Gardiner roadway to look like a tree canopy from Fort York. But, with the financial problem city hall has, I can’t see them spending money to make the expressway look nice.
LikeLike
For once it looks as though someone at TTC is thinking. Seems like a great plan to come up with a better alignment, and shave some time off the streetcar route. I’ve always figured they’d be better off going along the old Front Street extension alignment, with a new surface loop (somehow) at Bay/Union or somewhere – but this might actually give you travel times that are competitive.
“Steve: Yes, this is a rather odd report because there is no reference anywhere to an EA. ”
Hang on – there’s a few references in the report to the EA, such as “all of these findings will be formalized in the Environmental Assessment Study Report for the Bremner-Fort York Light Rail Line which is currently in preparation” and “TTC and City staff also began, in May, 2007, an Environmental Assessment (EA) study for a 3.5-kilometre dedicated transit right-of-way in the Bremner Boulevard-Fort York Boulevard corridor between Union Station and Exhibition Place, where it would connect to the proposed Waterfront West LRT.” Isn’t the EA discussed at http://www.toronto.ca/involved/projects/waterfront_transit/index.htm#union?
Too many EAs … starting to lose track!
Steve: The trail within the EA materials linked from that page runs cold in February 2008 with the first public meetings. At no time has the “under Gardiner” option been presented for discussion, and the second public meeting, shown as being in April on the project plan, never took place as far as I can tell. I am trying to find out what is going on, but believe part of the haste was caused by a desire to get this project into the hopper at Metrolinx for their July agenda.
I await return emails to clarify this situation from several people.
LikeLike
I’ve learned that the purpose of this report was to forward the proposal to Metrolinx because they are expected “to present their Regional Transit Plan and funding approval for selected Grater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) rapid transit initiatives in July 2008”. I guess this segment wasn’t included in the original Transit City, so they had to do it separately.
The EA for this ongoing. The first PIC was held in January. The second PIC, originally scheduled for May, I am told will be held this fall.
I believe that instead of spending $180 million to build this, it would be cheaper and better to improve the existing Queen Quay route.
The reasons are:
Service to City Place can be provided by Spadina cars, however walking should be encouraged ahead of transit. This neighborhood is close enough to walk downtown, as it will be indoor most of the way because there is an entrance to the PATH by the CN Tower. Money could be spent extending the PATH further west making walking even more desirable.
With the Queens Quay Revitalization the layout for Queen Quay will totally change and much less traffic will cross the ROW allowing for much better transit priority.
The Bremner route would still have to cross all the traffic on Spadina, Simcoe, York, Navy Warf and others but Queen Quay will no longer need to.
During off peak periods, for frequent service an be provided if it is concentrated in one place, rather then split between the two routes.
Express service could be provided the existing routes if passing sidings or cross overs are built at local stops and local streetcar are required wait before turning on the Queen Quay if the see an express streetcar coming.
Crossing Lakeshore is a difficult problem, but a tunnel could be built from Fleet to Queen Quay. The land is available.
While these ideas require vision and daring, what they do not require is $180 million dollars.
LikeLike
Not that I think that “vision and daring” are not required, but upgrading Queens Quay 509 service does not address service to the booming number of condos that are in the process of being completed due south of the railway tracks and north of the Gardiner and Lakeshore.
Construction of a tunnel to the Fleet Street R-O-W would be problematic for the existing 511 Bathurst service. How would the two lines would subsequently join or do we build the 509 tunnel all the way to the EX Loop and come above ground to continue west? Put Bathurst into the tunnel as well? It’s a steep enough grade from Fort York to Fleet now. And we would have a mighty deep tunnel if we start north of the bridge as it would have to contend with the railway.
Now I’m not trying to play spoiler or engineer. But what I am pushing is that we have service where people live and to where they want to go. That service has to be built in an affordable manner. Tunnelling is an expensive proposition, especially on land that used to be lake! And that has a mass of buildings and roads already in place.
I think your tunnel might cost far more than the $180 million clams!
Steve: First off, it’s not “my” tunnel, it’s the TTC’s tunnel. Also, a good chunk of it already exists in the basement of the Air Canada Centre and the office building immediately to the west. The line runs on the surface on Bremner, crosses Spadina and Bathurst at grade toward the south end of their own crossings of the rail corridor, runs a short distance along Fort York Boulevard and then into an existing space under the Gardiner.
This arrangement splits the traffic coming in from Parkdale and beyond to the “north” route while the existing 509 and 511 routes use the “south” route via Fleet.
LikeLike
“Fantasy: Too bad we can’t paint or sculpture the pillars to look like tree trunks and the Gardiner roadway to look like a tree canopy from Fort York.”
Maybe we could drop $5m on chiselling them into statue pillars using provincial, city and tax-rebated donations. Nah – that would never happen…
Steve: First you have to enclose the Gardiner in Crystal.
LikeLike
So there goes any possibility of direct service to the south side of the Exhibition lands and Ontario Place?
Steve: From that line, yes.
LikeLike
When they “protect” the tunnel allowance beneath the ACC and the office building beside it, what did they do? Did they build the tunnel outright? Did they fill it in? Does the TTC only need to knock down a wall in the side of the Bay Street tunnel and they’re to York Street?
If that’s the case, I think that’s significant. It suggests that construction can start on the tunnel between York and Simcoe without disrupting service to Union Station. The task of opening the tunnel and connecting the tracks to it becomes much easier, and possibly could be done in a month or two?
Steve: It depends on how each development was constructed. If they dug a big hole for the foundations, it would hardly make sense to fill in the part they were not going to use for the building proper, but it depends on the design.
LikeLike
Running the Waterfront West line under Brenmer Boulevard and the Gardiner to Exhibition Place sounds like a stunning indictment of the Hahbuhfrawnt right of way from out here. With what was spent on the infrastructure supporting a dedicated line down the middle of Queens Quay, I have a tough time believing that the line could not support a sufficiently robust LRT implementation to make a Brenmer tunnel superfluous to the TTC’s higher-order transit needs. Not that I want to harp on streetside LRT implementations in my neck of the woods, but surely it has occurred to *someone* to investigate low-floor LRT services in places like Portland, Sacramento, and Charlotte, and thus to intuit the advantages of coupling LRVs to handle higher passenger loads–especially given that in the case of the Hahbuhfrawnt tracks, the capital investment in a right of way has already been made.
Steve: The primary issue, as set out in the TTC report and as often discussed here, is that the existing Fleet, Queen’s Quay, Bay route to Union has so many traffic lights, many of which are unfriendly to transit. In particular, the signals at Bathurst cannot accommodate as many transit movements per hour as are forecast for this location. The projected time to Union for WWLRT riders is 20% lower via the Bremner route.
Why this isn’t seen as a problem of signal design rather than transit is an intriguing question, and it also raises concerns about the crossings of Bremner with Bathurst and Spadina. I’m sure we will hear that taking too much time away from Spadina green phases will completely screw up access to the Gardiner.
The indictment is that anyone thought the original line, as configured, could actually provide frequent service to Union. It was a Toonerville Trolley from the day it opened compounded by long waits at red lights where there wasn’t a conflicting auto movement visible for miles. This is an example of interagency co-operation between the TTC and the City Transportation Services folks.
LikeLike
W.K. Lis says “If they do put a LRT under the Gardiner, they better do any re-construction and repairs to the Gardiner now than later.”
In fact, over the last three or four years, the City has repaired all the concrete support columns under the Gardiner going west from Spadina to the new Fort York Blvd entrance to Fort York. There are about 10 more supports west of this which clearly do still need repair. The repairs seem to move fairly fast and it probably makes sense to do these in conjunction with the construction of the new streetcar line.
Though it will be important to take account of Fort York and its vistas, I think that a streetcar line under the Gardiner from where it crosses over Fort York Blvd to Exhibition Place makes a great deal of sense – why add to streetcar traffic on Fleet Street and increase streetcar traffic crossing Strahan Blvd. Possibly the eastern part of this section could be slightly below grade so that it would be far less obtrusive? (The western part is already below grade.)
Steve: The vertical alignment is constrained by the need to get up to the level of Fort York Blvd. where the Gardiner crosses it and by the proposed Fort York station which needs to be easily accessible.
LikeLike
Steve writes:
The primary issue, as set out in the TTC report and as often discussed here, is that the existing Fleet, Queen’s Quay, Bay route to Union has so many traffic lights, many of which are unfriendly to transit. In particular, the signals at Bathurst cannot accommodate as many transit movements per hour as are forecast for this location.
The rebuild of Queen’s Quay will theoretically ameliorate (if not fix) some of the slow operation there, won’t it?
Steve: I’m not betting on it. The biggest problem is that the signal controllers sense an oncoming car too late to avoid holding it before the transit green phase, and then only let through one car per cycle (although operators often run the tail end of the transit phase in frustration).
As for Bathurst/Fleet/Lake Shore, the biggest issue is the long, long, long green phase given Lake Shore. I can change my clothes on my bicycle while waiting there.
Steve: And watch the total absence of traffic in a location where, we are told, all that green time is necessary to avoid congestion.
Speaking of Fleet Street, cars persist in trying to turn from southbound Bathurst onto the ROW; I saw another example of that last night. It’s not clear to me how this problem can be fixed. Putting in car traps is appealing in theory, that is until the first stuck car blocked all service to Exhibition Loop.
LikeLike
“Speaking of Fleet Street, cars persist in trying to turn from southbound Bathurst onto the ROW; I saw another example of that last night. It’s not clear to me how this problem can be fixed. Putting in car traps is appealing in theory, that is until the first stuck car blocked all service to Exhibition Loop.”
The problem is that the visual contrast [is] too close. But, no car traps! Mustn’t forget that fire trucks may have to use the Fleet Street right-of-way, just like on St. Clair. Or else we will upset more of the anti-transit people, just like up on St. Clair. Rumble strips, cobblestones, or deliberate pot-holes maybe.
LikeLike
Waterfront West is a long route. If there is a chance to straighten and accelerate it using the Bremmer tunnel, at a reasonable cost, this investment is worthwhile.
This streetcar route must compete both with private autos and with the “bus to Bloor plus two subways” trips, hence speed is important to build ridership. I am not suggesting that it will be as fast as private autos, but hope that the streetcar can be fast enough to win on a combination of factors, including costs and parking space availability for cars.
LikeLike
“It’s not clear to me how this problem can be fixed. Putting in car traps is appealing in theory, that is until the first stuck car blocked all service to Exhibition Loop.”
I am thinking a well-placed bollard that would not obstruct streetcars but would obstruct vehicles turning into the ROW but not the lane beside the ROW might be a potential solution.
LikeLike
While wordsmithing my post of June 20th I omitted the reference for my tunnel comment which may have led to some confusion. The tunnel I was referring to was not the Union/ACC tunnel (Your tunnel…) but the proposed tunnel in Darwin’s post prior to mine vis-a-vis Queens Quay – Bathurst – Fleet under Lakeshore.
“Crossing Lakeshore is a difficult problem, but a tunnel could be built from Fleet to Queen Quay. The land is available.”
My apologies for the lack of clarity.
The other tunnel(s) are most definitely the TTC’s current or proposed. Which IMHO should be kept to a minimum to keep costs down.
LikeLike
“straightening the route”? – hmm, are we sure that we don’t want to do a straight line in along Front St.? somehow?
Front St is wider, hsitorically had transit upon it, needs transit for existing real destinations, and intersects with other lines along with Union. Yes, there’s much momentum for some of what’s built and an inferior line and spending a lot of money, but the piecemealing of planning and EAs means the mediocre and likely less effective routes survive to thrive.
And there are penalties to trying to get change in another area of the City – one misses a post/mtg – things get cast in concrete, not that they are really too willing to adapt “fresh” ideas anyway – the directness of Front St. (and perhaps Bremner) was noted as being necessary in the 1993 WWLRT EA, but we’ve never studied direct on Front yet despite multi-millions on the FSE, WWLRT, EAs, etc.
Steve: One issue with going straight across Front Street is that the block between Bay and York is likely going to be pedestrianized as part of the overall Union Station plan. The volume of pedestrian traffic projected to cross Front Street (on various levels) is so high that through traffic may be severely limited. A frequent LRT service plus its station would be hard to fit in.
It is roughly 850 ft from York to Bay, and a station, including a crossover (this assumes we would run double-ended equipment not current planned for the line) would take up roughly 400 feet as a terminal. This would have to lie in the west half of the block leaving the remaining space open for pedestrians to cross unimpeded. It’s not impossible, but it’s a challenge especially with the restriction of no loop for regular “city” cars.
Continuing further east to provide some sort of loop brings on a much more complex impact study that would invalidate the supposed simplicity of a Front Street line.
LikeLike
Just occurred to me: would it be possible to run the line along Front, and place the section closest to Union in a tunnel under Front? To avoid the need of level -2, the loop could be west of subway tracks and PATH tunnels. Given the short length of the tunnel, its cost should not be that high.
Connection to PATH would be pretty good. A walk to Union subway or GO trains would be a bit too long, but a perfect arrangement at that location is not possible anyway due to the large number of conflicting demands.
Steve: There is limited room for a loop even west of the York-to-Bay block. The space at the one below level at York itself will be occupied by the future northwest PATH tunnel. Next over is the parking garage that sits on top of the University Subway. This means that what might look like a big open space for a loop under the Front-University-York intersection is already chock full of stuff with more to come. Two below, aside from the extra cost, would run into the University Subway itself.
LikeLike
The fact that the preferred route passes through a National Historic Site at Fort York seems to have been missed in the discussion.
The Friends of Fort York have been on record pointing out that the preferred route passes through a National Historic Site, and the City’s most important Heritage Conservation District. It has been nearly 100 years since the City tried to push another streetcar route through the Fort, which took huge public outcry to stop. Instead, the route was switched to cut across the northern ramparts instead doing damage to this site that has never been restored.
The Fort and its surrounding territories are a battlefield from the War of 1812, contain the largest collection of War of 1812 buildings in Canada. We are about to celebrate the bi-centennial of the War of 1812. Running a streetcar line through this historic site is not the way to celebrate.
LikeLike
The Gardiner is vastly more insulting to the site than a streetcar; at least streetcars existed almost 150 years ago (albeit horse-drawn) – the private auto was rare, and paved roads as we know them today were indeed hard to come by back then. Wouldn’t Fort York Blvd. be less appropriate than a streetcar given that historical perspective?
Fast forward from the 1860s to the 1960s and Fort York, along with Sunnyside/Parkdale, are blemished, if not ruined, by the march of the auto and its flagship behemoth: Gardiner. Where was the public outcry to stop the expressway? More importantly, where is the outcry to tear it down for the National Historic Site’s sake?
There should have been an outcry over Fort York Blvd., since that is the route through the National Historic Site, originally for the auto (again). Why is it OK for autos to pass through it but not streetcars? Fort York Blvd. is what the streetcar will use anyway; it is not taking out any land that hasn’t already been consumed by the auto, so why should there be any outcry at all?
The Gardiner staying in the Fort York area is more of a problem than a streetcar servicing it; the streetcar service will actually help the site, since unlike the Gardiner, you can actually get off at the site from the streetcar service. It would be best to target the outcries against the auto rather than public transit, which can actually give the Historic Site some support. Before the Gardiner is gone, there is no point in making noise over a streetcar using the auto’s infrastructure.
These are outcries over increasing public accessability to the site; you’d think such a group would want more people to see the History of Fort York, yet they oppose the infrastructure that enables such. Very ironic.
Steve: The problem with the TTC’s proposal is that it severs the park into two pieces with the Armoury to the south and the rest of the fort to the north. Moreover, it directly conflicts with plans for a visitor centre at the park entrance from Fort York Blvd. that has been on the books for many years.
Yes, the fort has to put up with the indignity of the Gardiner, and back when that was built, Toronto had not developed a sense of history or of citizen activism to block such monstrosities. Roads and especially the Gardiner were signs of our new booming metropolis. You cannot use the mistakes of the past to justify more of the same.
It’s important to recognize that the LRT line would only be on Fort York Blvd. itself for a short distance west of Bathurst, and it would then swing into the old rail cut that now lies under the Gardiner. Although this isn’t the greatest space thanks to the expressway, it does provide a link at ground level between the two halves of the site.
Most frustrating in all of this is that the TTC keeps changing the WWLRT to improve its attractiveness. Originally it was to go via Fleet and Queen’s Quay, then via Fort York and Bremner, now via the rail cut under the Gardiner. Each change confirmed the shortcomings of what went before even though, at the time, those plans were unassailable in the proponents’ minds.
LikeLike
Catherine Nasmith says “Running a streetcar line through this historic site is not the way to celebrate.”
Though I am a history “buff” and enjoy Fort York, I would be hard pressed to see this proposed line as “running through” a historic site. The proposed alignment is outside the Fort’s present fence line and the line will run in an extremely ugly, unused and probably unusable area running between the supporting beams of the Gardiner. As that section of the Gardiner seems to be there for “ever” it makes sense to me to put the line there rather than a few yards further south in the middle of Fort York Blvd.
I suppose one could look at whether the line should move off FY Blvd just north of where the the Gardiner crosses or a bit further south, nearer to Fleet Street and closer to the new entrance road to Fort York – at which point it would run on an old unused rail ‘cutting’ under Strachan and to Exhibition.
Steve: Please see my remarks in the previous comment. The proposed line runs in an area planned to link the two halves of the site together. This proposal has been on the books since 2001.
LikeLike
The suggested ROW west of the fort certainly makes sense. There is certainly nothing of historic value in that area and it would make a clear LRT run to the Exhibition.
The issue appears to concern where the ROW will dismount from Fort York Bvd immediately south of the fort. If this were to be a right turn at the bottom of the hill from Bathurst, there is certainly not much room there. Is there a reference available from previous studies?
Looking at it another way, an LRT is not supposed to divide the area it goes through (St. Clair being a prime example). Just build the path to the armory across the ROW.
As for the information center, can it be presented in a complementary manner. What better Fort York entrance than a main LRT stop just outside the door. It certainly beats the current bridge from Bathurst st.
LikeLike