Updated December 3, 2013 at 12:20 pm: The last piece of track to be installed on York, from King south to Wellington, is now in place. Photos follow the break and the summary of events.
Updated November 14, 2013 at 6:30 pm: Because of delays with hydro and water utilities, the project on York Street is running about 4 weeks behind schedule. Installation of track from King south to Wellington is now planned for the week of November 25. The project as a whole should be finished by December 13, and 503 York service will resume on December 16. [Thanks to Brad Ross at the TTC for the update.]
Updated September 14, 2013 at 4:30 pm: The intersection of Adelaide & York is under construction this weekend.
Updated August 26, 2013 at 9:20 am: The work originally planned starting on August 24 at Adelaide & York has been deferred until September.
Updated August 3, 2013 at 11:15 pm: New special work has been placed at Richmond and York, and the trackbed is excavated to just north of Adelaide. Replacement of the Adelaide intersection (with only a northbound tangent track) and vicinity is scheduled for the last week of August.
Updated July 30, 2013 at 3:30 pm: Reconstruction of Richmond & York is now in progress, and some demolition of the old trackbed south from Richmond is underway. Between Richmond and Wellington, Toronto Water is working at several locations.
Updated July 25, 2013 at 5:10 pm: Streetcar service will resume operation on Queen between Church and Spadina on Sunday, July 28 at 5:00 am. The York & Queen intersection will reopen to traffic both ways late on Saturday afternoon.
The intersection at Richmond will close on Friday evening, July 26 at 8 pm for about three weeks and most of the special work will be removed. Only the northbound track and the west-to-north curve will remain.
Updated July 17, 2013 at 11:10 pm: The diversion has been extended to July 25. Photos of the new trackwork have been added to this article.
Updated July 7, 2013 at 11:30 pm: The diversion has been extended an extra week to July 22 due to construction problems at Queen & York.
Updated July 3, 2013 at 2:30 pm: The matter of adequate signage explaining the diversion has been raised in the comment thread.
Photos and comments on this topic follow below.
December 3, 2013 11:00 am:
Looking south from King. No, it’s not a foggy day, but steam from a nearby manhole.
November 28, 2013 midday:
The new track for the section south of King sits north of the intersection awaiting installation.
Updated September 18, 2013 at 3:30 pm:
The completed track across the intersection. Excavation extends some distance east and west due to the removal of the old special work.
Updated September 14, 2013 at 4:30 pm:
Looking northwest across Adelaide & Spadina on September 5. Some of the intersection has already been removed during watermain upgrades.
By midday on September 14, removal of the intersection was well underway. This was once 3/4 of a grand union showing how important the location used to be as part of the downtown streetcar network and the varied looping patterns for routes before the subway opened. It will now have a single northbound track. The view below is taken from the northwest corner.
Updated August 3, 2013 at 11:15 pm:
Looking north on York across Richmond showing the new west-to-north curve and trailing switch. The foundation concrete is in place for the northbound rails but they have not been placed yet.
Looking south on York toward Adelaide.
Updated July 30, 2013 at 3:30 pm:
Reconstruction of York & Richmond is in progress. Only the west-to-north curve and the northbound through track will survive from what was a full Y junction when these were both two-way streets.
Looking southeast across the intersection.
Looking northeast across the intersection.
Updated July 17, 2013 at 11:10 pm:
The new track has been in place on Queen and at the York Street intersection for about a week, and concrete placement is substantially completed.
Looking north on York to Queen (photos taken July 15, 2013).
Looking across the north-to-west curve onto Queen from York.
Looking west on Queen from the Sheraton Centre pedestrian bridge.
Meanwhile on King Street, an amusing diversion notice for the 503 Kingston Road car has appeared.
According to this, the 503 cars are looping via Yonge Street and should be boarded at Victoria. As there has not been any streetcar track on Yonge since 1954, this is rather challenging. The corresponding web page claims that streetcars are turning back at Victoria. Of course, as anyone who knows where streetcars short turn downtown could tell you, the cars loop via Church, Richmond and Victoria, and can be boarded eastbound on the northwest corner of Church & King.
It is rather embarrassing when the TTC’s own Communications folks can’t put out an accurate diversion notice.
Updated July 2, 2013 at 5:40 pm:
Demolition of the existing track at Queen & York began over the holiday weekend. The view below looks southwest to the intersection from the pedestrian bridge over Queen Street. The eastern approach and switches have been removed.
Not visible in this photo is a large excavation for water main work on the southwest corner of the intersection. Trenching is also underway on York south of Queen for a new main.
Looking east on Queen from the pedestrian bridge, two sections of rail are assembled ready for installation. They are parts of the north-to-west curve with the diamond crossing of the eastbound track in the near section, and the trailing switch westbound in the far section. The panel with the trailing eastbound switch is sitting just west of the bridge.
As part of this project, the westbound carstop at University will be replaced. In the photo below, note that the excavation is only down to the bottom of the rails because this area is built to the “new” track standards. The existing rails will be unclipped from the steel ties in the second layer of concrete, and new rails will be dropped in in their place. This is an example of the saving possible with the new track structure because the street does not have to be excavated down to the foundation. Also visible, hanging off of the exposed rails, is the rubber sleeve that isolates the track from the surrounding concrete.
Original article June 26, 2013:
New track has already been stored on the east side of York south of King, and preliminary work is underway at the Queen and York intersection.
Beginning on Saturday, June 29, the special work at Queen and York will be replaced along with the tangent track on either side of the intersection. 501 Queen service will divert via Church, King and Spadina both ways, while the 502 Downtowners will short turn via Church, Richmond and Victoria. (This is a different diversion from the one originally proposed — Victoria, Dundas, McCaul — in the TTC’s service memo for this period.)
This will add even more streetcar traffic to the busy intersection of King and Spadina. This, plus road traffic diverted from Queen by the construction, should make King a challenging street for two weeks. Whether the TTC or Toronto Police will try to do anything about this, or will just leave everyone to fend for themselves, remains to be seen.
The intersection at Richmond will follow on the extended weekend of July 27 to August 4, and Adelaide from August 24 to 31.
The August routing for the 503 Kingston Road Tripper is still unknown given that King and Spadina will be closed for reconstruction, and York south of King will likely have its track replaced at some point during the same month.
Updated July 3, 2013:
Signage to advise passengers that the Queen street services are not where they might expect is rather terse. With the exception of several large notices in the southwest exit from Osgoode Station, there is a mixture of diversion maps printed on paper and standard temporary stop markers. The only language in which these are printed is English leaving those who might not understand what is going on in the dark.
Queen & University
In the station entrance on the southwest corner by the eastbound carstop, there is one of the TTC’s standard construction notices. More of these can be found in the passageway to the ticket mezzanine. However, none is posted on the route a rider would take to the westbound stop.
The stops (westbound and eastbound above) have a diversion notice and temporary signs directing riders to “Take the subway to St. Andrew”. A similar notice is inside the transit shelters (visible in the first photo above along). It is, of course, faster just to walk down University Avenue.
Yonge Street
At Yonge Street, riders are told “Take subway to King” even though for eastbound trips, a short walk east to Victoria (for 502 Downtowner) or Church (for 501 Queen) would do just as well.
Victoria Street
Both the eastbound and westbound stops exhort riders to board cars at Church Street although, as mentioned above, they will find 502 Downtowner cars right across the street at the “northbound” stop. That stop (the 3rd picture above) has the odd notation that it has only PM peak service. This would normally be the 508 Lake Shore car, but the stop is also served during the construction project by 502 Downtowner and 503 Kingston Road (once York south of King closes). Nothing on the stop indicates that this temporary service is available.
Church Street
On the eastbound stop, we learn that service is available “4 poles east”, and once we figure out what this means, and peer down Queen, we may see the temporary TTC stop sign on a pole a few hundred feet east of Church. It is unclear why there isn’t simply a 501 Queen stop northbound on Church as there has been during previous diversions on this route. Possibly this arrangement gives a common stop so that the ever so infrequent 502 Downtown cars can share an eastbound stop. For this privilege, all riders get to walk an extra half-block.
On the westbound stop, the string that once held the diversion notice to the pole is visible, but the notice itself is long gone. This is a typical problem, but it is at least at a stop where streetcars actually still provide service.
I have not had a chance to check other stops such as Bay Street and all of the stops west of University.
The point at issue is that despite brave words about improved communication of service changes to passengers, the TTC has not changed much. Regular riders will figure out quickly enough what is happening if only because they are diverted as part of their regulatr commute. Occasional riders are not so lucky, nor are any who do not read English signs.
As I write this, the TTC is still dealing with signal problems on the Yonge Subway, no doubt a much more pressing issue. That’s just the problem: we get ad hoc, hand-written signs and minimal use of large-scale, visible notices because nobody quite got around to it. For a two week diversion on a major route, that’s not a very good showing.
Steve Munro 
I guess the option for the 503 is to loop via Church, Richmond, Victoria and Adelaide for the duration that King & Spadina is under construction.
Steve: We will see in due course. Various alternatives are available especially if the track north of King on York is open again in August.
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Does this mean that York St. will be single track from top to bottom? If so will it be a middle of the road track?
Steve: Single track, where the northbound track is now (otherwise the lane geometry would be affected, not to mention intersections at Wellington and King which are not part of this project.
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Hi Steve
I am wondering why the TTC is replacing the entire intersection at Queen and York. The specialwork on York is old but the Queen portion dates from around 2000. Is there that much wear on the specialwork on Queen?
Steve: The concrete around the special work is starting to break up. With the rest of York under construction, it makes sense to rebuild the entire intersection to current standards.
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Regarding the previous discussion about the 503 routing during construction: it will loop via Church, Richmond, Victoria, Queen and Church back to King. This will come into effect next week, on Tuesday and will remain so until mid-August until after the King & Spadina intersection re-opens for service. The track on York south of King will not be available until at least October.
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I had forgotten about the York St. work and therefore had the misfortune to use the Queen eastbound car from University to Augusta on Saturday at about midday. The signage at University and Queen is disturbingly terse (and handwritten): use the subway to get to St. Andrew, when, for most people, walking will be much faster.
Three streetcar lines plus vehicular traffic arriving at King and Spadina caused bumper-to-bumper westbound traffic back almost to University Avenue, on what the streetcar driver discussed as an “average day.” Eastbound traffic was also slow, owing to turning streetcars and lack of gaps in westbound traffic.
It was plainly evident to me that there was far too much for the intersection at this “average” level. I got out of the streetcar just before Spadina, because it was going to be so much faster to walk to Augusta and Queen from there. Spadina was almost bumper-to-bumper streetcars, as I crossed the street.
I shudder to think what it must be like at either rush hour for anyone using the TTC on Spadina, or on King and Queen through Spadina to University.
Steve: To watch this mess in real time from the comfort of your apartment, go to whereismystreetcar and watch the congestion. The site has its limits (it does not uniquely identify vehicles for each route), but it does show the Queen cars on their diversionary route, something Nextbus does not because the TTC has not updated the base map for the 501 route to reflect the new routing. You will have to zoom in the map view to see the details, but a truly astounding number of transit vehicles are clustered downtown with comparatively open expanses at the outer ends of the lines. It is also amusing to note that of the three routes (501, 504, 510 I have included in that link), the calculated operating speed for 510 Spadina is the slowest. There are times when half of the service is south of Queen Street snarled in the congestion at the loop.
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I walked along Queen about 4pm this afternoon and at the Yonge eastbound stop there were two separate individuals peering into the distance looking for the streetcar. I explained first to one, then the other that the service was diverted via King, and they both thanked me profusely. The signage to this effect is appalling and disgraceful and quite obviously does not work. If the TTC logo was modified to show a middle finger emerging from the top, then we would all know where we stood wouldn’t we.
Steve: I will drop by and photograph this. If it’s really bad, this doesn’t say much for Andy Byford’s program to clean up customer information, and this for a major diversion. Sigh.
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Well, Steve,
Your fears about tram traffic and the strain on King St. came to fruition today: A stalled street-car at York and King pretty much totalled service on King, Queen and the downtowner routes this afternoon. I hope that the TTC reconsiders it’s re-routing options (Maybe Church/Dundas/McCall though I don’t recall what the union is like from Queen to Church and I can’t recall the state of the tracks on Victoria as an alternate). Splitting the east and west Queen cars on King and Dundas is another option… All in all a mess today.
Steve: Yes, I was watching it on whereismystreetcar.
Two points. First, the originally planned diversion was via Victoria, Dundas and McCaul both ways, but this was scrapped because (a) the overhead at Dundas and McCaul is in rough shape, and (b) it would have required two pointmen including one westbound at McCaul where the electric switch doesn’t work. The track on Victoria is in good shape and has been used for this sort of diversion before, and McCaul is almost brand new.
Second, the TTC is so busy apologizing for screwing up the subway service, they have been totally silent on what has happened to King and Queen. There was no special schedule instituted with extra running time for either route, no special traffic provisions, and even the public info about the diversion was last minute. They could not have designed a better screwup if they had tried. Great way to impress people with streetcars at the same time as the CEO asks for reserved lanes.
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Hi Steve,
A particularly bad example of diversion signage is the westbound stop at Queen and Spadina. A notice is placed over the stop pole, but since the pole is on the sidewalk and not the safety island, those who cross Queen from the south and walk directly onto the safety island have no indication streetcars will not be stopping there. I saw a large group of people standing at the island yesterday peering down Queen in vain.
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Just to add to the confusion, CIS control is still using McCaul Loop as a short-turn point, and there are 501’s going eastbound on Queen past Spadina to short-turn at McCaul loop.
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York Street should have been rebuilt with 2 way traffic and track from Queen to King. It has no need to be one way north of King. It is only the section that comes north off Front to Wellington that cannot handle south bound traffic. The rest of the street does not have any real benefit from being one way. There should be full turns to eb on Adelaide and from wb on Richmond. Too late for this round of rebuild. The TTC really has to look at what could be done and not what has been done.
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The section between Queen and Richmond is already two way so really only the section between King and Richmond needs to be changed. TTC culture probably prevents such extreme outside the box thinking however.
Steve: This is not a TTC decision. One way streets (creation/removal) are up to City Transportation and Council. I believe that changing the Richmond/Adelaide pair is being considered as part of the studies now underway both for traffic operations and for bikeways downtown.
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The rail on Victoria has been undermined and cannot handle a full diversion especially with the weight of the ALRVs. It can be used for minor movements. Streetcar Way would not allow this routing for fear of damage to the point of not being able to continue to use.
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It was a bit of a sarcastic dig at the TTC for not moving proactively for sure. Even if someone inside came up with this idea I am sure they would be throwing their hands up in the air claiming that congestion prevents it from being done.
Steve: The TTC should fight much harder for measures that would improve traffic at the micro scale, but they shoot for the moon with a complete King Street shutdown, and get nothing. Just getting the legislation (if necessary) and practices changed to allow the TTC to tow without police assistance would make a huge difference, especially considering that the usual excuse from the Police force is that they have other more pressing work. Also, the TTC (and members who are also Councillors) should fight for more traffic restrictions and transit priority.
The situation with the Queen diversion is a particular case where the TTC really screwed up with inadequate recognition in advance of the types of traffic measures that would be needed to keep service moving, and with a minimal approach to public info. Very disappointing.
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Due to excavation issues, the 501 diversion & 502 turn back is being extended one week until Monday July 22 opening at 5 A.M. Original date was July 15.
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But why does the York/Queen intersection take so long to rebuild? I recall that the more complex McCaul/College intersection took only 4-5 days with most of the work happening on a long weekend.
Steve: I understand that problems have been encountered at the intersection that are outside the scope of the TTC’s work, but so far, the TTC has not bothered to issue an explanatory press release. Toronto Water is doing infrastructure upgrades on York in parallel with the track project, and this is stretching out the timeline for everything.
Normally, an intersection like this should take two weeks to complete including demolition of the existing track, building a new roadbed, installing the new rail panels, pouring the surface layer of concrete and waiting for it to cure before beginning service. This would not include final paving work for the entire intersection, but would allow streetcar service to resume on the main street. This pattern has been seen in the much larger projects of past years at King & Bathurst and at Queen & Spadina.
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Finally, I have something positive to say about the TTC. Today at about 1 pm, I noticed a TTC information helper at each of the two 501 stops at Yonge. (I think these are college students working temporarily during the summer to give tourists and riders information. They wear blue vests with the TTC logo on the back.) I did not notice any helpers last week, but then I only passed that corner only once last week. Judging from MarkE’s comments, they weren’t there on July 2.
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At about 2pm today I got off the Subway at Queen and noticed at the (lower) station entrance two large printed signs advising of the 501 diversion. The signs included a map and instructions. Great! When I got to the street at the westbound stop there were two ‘information helpers’, to use correspondent Richard L’s (above) description, who cheerfully asked if I wanted the streetcar. Great! The decrepit signage however was still there. Then tonight at about 9pm, with no evidence of helpers, there were 8 people waiting for the eastbound car. They were all within 10m of the appalling signage, testament to its uselessness.
How about announcements on the trains, and in Queen and King stations, and large sandwich board signs at all the stops, with spares for when one goes missing. Cost is a pittance compared to the three weeks of trackwork causing the diversion in the first place.
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Another issue with this project is the routing for the 503 tripper service. It no longer loops via Wellington, because the northbound track on York has been taken out of service since July 1. The 503 has been cut back to Church Street, looping via Richmond and Adelaide.
I was in the area yesterday: no signage whatsoever indicating the change.
The worst part is that it is not even mentioned on the public TTC website. Both the service alerts page and the diversion page make no mention of it. The service memo with the revised routing has only been circulated internally, as it is a change at the ‘divisonal level’.
So much for customer service. How are the people who might rely on that streetcar supposed to know about this?
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Do you know whether or not the TTC has changed the 502 schedule (again) thanks to construction at York?
Three times now I’ve been able to catch a 502 in the Beaches (coming from Neville)
Normally I just walk to Woodbine loop and wait to see what pair pulls out at the same time… But I’ve seen no notices to say the Downtowner’s are providing service all the way.
Steve: Sounds like creative use of the 502s that have lots of time judging by how long any I have seen get to sit in Woodbine Loop.
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Even with the shortened route there were 502s bunched up signed up for Church and Parliament. This is all made the worse due to the demolition taking place on Broadview.
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Both Church Street and Parliament were blocked by (I believe) disabled ALRVs on Saturday afternoon. I happened to be stuck on a vehicle at the rear of the convoy. The four diversions/reroutings combined with the parade downtown made a real mess of streetcar service. Any chance of an analysis of this day? It wouldn’t be pretty!
Steve: I am planning to ask for data for both June and July as there have been many unusual, but long-lived, events and I would like to see how the service operated once it “settled into” a new configuration. For example, with the 504 and 505 routes effectively shortened, they have more running time for the rest of their trips, and this should show up as a lower need to short turn elsewhere.
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With the closure at Broadview & Gerrard, there is better schedule adherence on the 504 and 505, but the 506 is a mess due to the longer routing and no additional cars or running time to compensate.
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That’s interesting. The 501 service I was using went east on King beyond Church. That means the 501 diversion was on diversion which itself was on a diversion.
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The problem last Saturday was on Church Street itself. The 501’s caught behind the blockage eastbound on King had no choice but to continue east on King. The cars further back that had not already turned south on Spadina were directed via Queen, McCaul, Dundas and Victoria, so as not to cover as much of the normal Queen routing as possible. In fact, but for the objection of Streetcar Way of using the tracks on Victoria in regular service and some financial considerations of requiring two pointmen for the manual swithces, the diversion would have been via Dundas for the entire duration of the project at York.
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I noticed a couple of things today.
At the eastbound stop on Queen at Spadina, the next vehicle information screen had a blurb about 501 streetcars being on diversion via Spadina and Church, although I don’t think it mentioned that it was along King. It also gave dates for the diversion (so if someone forgets to turn the blurb off….). I didn’t notice that blurb last Wednesday, when the sign was predicting next streetcars in 20 minutes and 40 minutes–I hoofed it to Yonge.
Oddly, while the eastbound stop at Queen and Spadina is totally in use, there was a “Stop out of Service. Board 501 streetcars at St. Andrew or King stations” affixed to the pole. I wonder if they sent out a summer student with a pile of these signs. They would only really be appropriate at Victoria, Yonge, Bay, York, University, and Simcoe. Maybe not even Victoria.
Steve: The whole management of signage for this diversion (and for the one around Broadview/Gerrard) was very amateurish and got better as things went along only in response to complaints. Even then, as your example shows, there were signs that didn’t make sense.
Frankly, I am getting tired of a “transportation” agency that does not even know where streets in Toronto go, or diversions might run, when making up pole cards or online announcements.
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Following up on that “Board streetcars at ….” sign.
One, it was totally pre-printed and professionally prepared. No hand-written text. Second, although nicely pre-printed and clear enough, it was small (regular rider notice size) and placed underneath the car stop sign, so I only noticed it after a few minutes of hanging around at the stop waiting for the streetcar. Someone less interested in reading signage may have missed it altogether.
Which brings us to the final irony, that not only was the sign doubly incorrect for the location (the stop was in service, and if it wasn’t, there still is no need to walk to the subway stations on King), it was sufficiently inconspicuous so that it would not confuse anyone.
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If this opens on July 28 it will have been exactly 30 days, to do something that used to be done in 4-5 days. My observation is that little was done most days, and that concrete curing is not a credible explanation for the extra 25 days.
Lately there has been two shifts of staff at Queen and Yonge to advise riders of the diversion – on Wednesday it was a street car operator working alone who would walk from one corner to the other all day. Signage at the stops was never improved and instead they pay staff! There were some good sized signs subsequently placed in the Queen station, but no announcement on trains, and no longer any mention on the website ‘service alerts’.
There seems to be a casual indifference to the disruption for pedestrians, riders and drivers such activities cause; what’s a week here or two there attitude. It seems they need a ‘client representative’ with some clout at the planning meeting, and on site, to argue and dictate for the rider, in much the same way a safety officer would dictate on safety issues.
Steve: On the Queen Street project I do not know why there was a long delay between the project appearing to be “finished” and the street re-opening for traffic. I will check.
Perhaps it is time for an inquiry into the planning fiasco surrounding the service disruptions and construction delays along the waterfront, where the streetcar service outages are now measured in seasons or years. Yes I understand it is not just the TTC involved, but if this is the best they (all of them) can do, then perhaps the project should never have started. And since no one is called to task we can only expect the same sad performance with the next project. The St Clair imbroglio has scarred both the TTC and ‘Streetcars’ for years to come, and now the Waterfront makes two. Third time lucky?
Steve: On Queens Quay the issues are well known and documented in reports that are publicly available on Waterfront Toronto’s website. The fundamental issue is that Hydro started 6 months late because they would not commit funds to the project until they had approval for their rate increase from the Ontario Energy Board. Everyone else has had to work around this, and there has been some creative shuffling of schedules. More recently, some of their work near Bay and York Streets has run into water problems that delayed their work. This has been resolved. For their part, Hydro has adjusted their work plans to fit in between other activities as best as possible.
The originally planned reopening date for the streetcar line was in the fall, but this was pushed back for various reasons including: (a) the original plan to do the work west of Peter Street slip (the loop and intersection at Spadina and west to Yo Yo Ma Lane) as a 2014 project made more sense for 2013 to get all of the trackwork out of the way in one go; (b) the TTC’s Union Station 2nd platform project will not be sufficiently clear of the access to Union Loop for passengers to use this connection until February 2014 because that project is slightly behind schedule. The net result is that the streetcar shutdown will be something like 4 months longer than expected, but without a second shutdown in 2014 to finish the work at Spadina.
Your description of the waterfront situation is a mis-characterization on a par with “the St. Clair Disaster”. If there was any bad planning on the waterfront, it was that two decades ago, we began to build up residential space in that district, but did nothing to increase the capacity of the utilities. That is now being rectified, and work since fall 2013 has been almost entirely concerned with utility upgrades. The project overall has been planned in great detail, and there has been ongoing liaison with the community groups and businesses. This is a complete contrast to St. Clair where plans changed on the fly (sometimes at the request of politicians), and co-ordination was more by accident than design.
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The TTC ad in today’s Metro newspaper said:
In his weekly editorial, Andy Byford said he is out to change the TTC culture.
Steve: Meanwhile the TTC’s website says that service resumes this Sunday.
The TTC has confirmed that Sunday is the correct date. This was a last-minute change that missed the cutoff for the ad in Metro.
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Not necessarily related to the York St. construction, but I’m struck recently at the sheer amount of construction in the area, it’s as if the entire district was being built at once:
– York St. reconstruction
– Union Station work/Front Street reconstruction
– Second Platform project
– new PATH connection
– two new office buildings under construction near Bay and Adelaide
– by my count at least four condos under construction along Adelaide from about John St. to Bay
– Queen’s Quay rebuild
– pending Wellington St. rebuild
– pending Gardiner work (rehab, York ramp demolition)
– sundry construction around Southcore (Delta Hotel, Ice condos, and the other projects on lower York Street)
Just an absolutely unprecedented concentration of construction, almost a mini-city being built. Poor Adelaide, I guess we’ll see if tracks are in its future when the York work progresses to Adelaide and we’ll see if new switches are put in. That street is being pummeled pretty much from Bathurst to Yonge Street.
Steve: My understanding is that all special work at Adelaide will be removed. Once the future of Adelaide is known as part of the study of downtown traffic, cycling lanes, etc., then we will know how much, if any, trackage on that street will remain.
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Looks like the westbound stop at York and Queen is back, albeit in “temporary” paper sign format.
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I was on the corner of Queen and Bay and the closure of Richmond and York has really resulted in a new “Red Zone”. At the intersection of Bay and Richmond, westbound vehicles on are now forced to either turn left (Southbound) or Right (Northbound) on Bay Street.
This has resulted in a increased traffic on Bay Street and impacted the intersection of Queen and Bay because vehicles are blocking the intersection when crossing the street so west/east traffic on Queen are having to wait. It is quite dangerous to see this and I was waiting on a streetcar for 3 traffic lights going eastbound on Queen because 2 cars did a poor job of judging their ability to cross the street.
Hopefully car owners are aware of this New Red Zone and they can make better decisions driving downtown. I am curious to see the Bay 6 Bus, if there will have to be increased short-turns or huge delays in meeting their schedules.
Steve: I saw this myself yesterday, and notable by their absence were any police officers to manage the congestion. It’s annoying that the City requires paid duty officers to supervise the most mundane of construction sites, but often misses knock-on effects like this a few blocks away.
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I noticed the lack of officers myself on Tuesday, however, this morning there were TPS aggressively enforcing traffic rules/laws at multiple intersections, including, from my own route, Richmond and Bay, Adelaide and Sheppard, and Adelaide and York.
Steve: Good to see a swift reaction to the problems.
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I for one do not understand why York is still only one way (south of Richmond) – it is underused (King St to Richmond, at least) when all of the other streets are congested.
Would it have not made sense to have north and southbound tracks going down to King street? Doesn’t this make such a change impossible for the next 20-30 years?
But then, I have been an advocate of turning both Adelaide and Richmond back into 2 way streets and putting streetcars back on both as a means of reducing the problems on the King and Queen lines.
Steve: I am not sure that streetcars on Richmond and Adelaide would solve the ills of King and Queen which extend well beyond the length of these roads downtown. The one-way system dates to the era of expressway construction when downtown arterials were important as collector/distributor roads for the highways. The DVP/Richmond/Adelaide junction is a prime example. A study now underway will review the operation of the downtown network including possible changes to the way Richmond and Adelaide operate.
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I was by the intersection of Richmond & York on August 3, and noticed that the switch at Richmond & York had wooden ties underneath it while the intersection at Queen & York had all metal ties. Is this because this is a less-heavily used intersection? I thought that they were going to all-metal ties under all special work intersections?
Steve: If you look at the photo in this article of the track panels sitting on Queen before installation, you will see that there are metal ties under the portions with straight or curved rails, but wooden ties under the switches and frogs. Extra wide ties would be needed for the special work and mounts for Pandrol clips would have to be set up specifically for each piece’s geometry.
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Great, thanks for clearing it up. I missed seeing those when I went by Queen & York. There is a slide for sale on ebay (not by me) taken in the early 1980s showing the old shoddy trackwork in progress. It looks like they didn’t even replace the ties, just scraped out the top layer of pavement and put in new rails and some fresh concrete on top. No wonder it fell apart.
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I went for a walk this past weekend south on York to Wellington, and then east past the St. Lawrence market. They are in the process of transitioning from the existing hardware to the new panto friendly hardware. As you have identified, they are installing panto hardware over the wrong-way track. Obviously this is not required for future operation, but they may be using it as a means to stage the transition from the lower (cross-road) spanwire to the higher spanwire required for the panto hardware – ie to constrain the geometry of the existing wrong-way contact wire for the transition. Why didn’t they just remove it first? Not entirely sure, but I suspect someone has just made the decision that this is the easiest way to stage the work, with the temporary panto hardware to be salvaged at some point later on. It’s probably a higher priority to make the required overhead panto compliant than it is to remove redundant overhead.
Steve: I have a hard times believing that the wrong way wire (including lovely new panto-friendly hangars) is actually needed. Other streets have single direction overhead (e.g. Church south from King to Wellington), and the wrong-way wire just looks dumb over paved lanes (e.g. Richmond west of Church). With Wellington shut down for a few weeks, there is no reason that the existing overhead couldn’t simply be replaced in one go with no need for co-existing structures.
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It’s more about the interim stage than the final condition. Redundant wire is absolutely unnecessary in the final condition as you have identified. I suspect they would rather prioritize their line crews to doing work to convert the remainder of the network first. In time, removal of the unnecessary overhead will likely take place once the crews are not required for high priority work. It would be another story altogether if they were sitting around with nothing better to do.
Steve: I can understand leaving wire in place so that it can be removed another day, but converting it to pan-friendly hardware?
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Only because the existing spanwire (supporting both contact wires) must be removed to clear pantographs on the active side. Putting in the second hanger to be salvaged later probably takes all of about 15 minutes, and with no actual use, will be in near-new condition when salvaged.
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Galt (Cambridge) had span wires and ears in place over Water Street into the early 70s even though electric operation ended in the 50s. The only thing I can think of is the poles still needed the span wires for bracing.
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Removal of wrong way overhead is progressing on Richmond east from York to about half way between Bay and York. They have tied off the dead end temporarily, so it will be interesting to see how long it takes for them to pick up where they left off.
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