In November 2015, Toronto Council directed that a consolidated review be conducted of the many overlapping proposals for transit improvements in the waterfront .
City Council direct City staff, working with the Toronto Transit Commission and Waterfront Toronto, to undertake a Phase 1 review of waterfront transit initiatives and options, and provide a status update to Executive Committee in the first quarter of 2016, such review of waterfront transit initiatives and options to include the proposed ShoreLine (closing the gap on the dedicated streetcar right-of-way between St. Joseph’s Hospital and Exhibition Place), the relocation of the Humber Loop, the Park Lawn – Lake Shore Transportation Master Plan currently underway, the possibility of a new GO Transit stop at Park Lawn, the proposed Legion Road extension, the proposed AM peak turning restrictions on Park Lawn Road from the Gardiner Expressway, the Mimico By the Lake Secondary Plan (Mimico 20/20), the Long Branch Avenue Study, and 2150 Lake Shore Boulevard West (former Mr. Christie bakery site).
Although this motion dwells extensively on the western waterfront, all of the proposals for improvements between western Etobicoke and Woodbine Avenue in The Beach are under review.
Two public meetings will be held to present the initial status of the review and solicit comments.
Central Location
Date: Wednesday May 25, 2016
Time: 6:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Open house begins at 6:00 p.m., followed by a presentation at 6:30 p.m.
Location: 235 Queens Quay West, Toronto, ON M5J 2G8 at Brigantine Room at Harbourfront Centre (major intersection is Queens Quay West and Lower Simcoe Street)West Location
Date: Thursday May 26, 2016
Time: 6:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Open house begins at 6:00 p.m., followed by a presentation at 6:30 p.m.
Location: 95 Mimico Avenue, Toronto, ON M8V 1R4 at John English Junior Middle School in the auditorium (closest major intersection is Royal York Road and Mimico Avenue)
At this point, the specifics of options for various segments of the waterfront are only at the conceptual stage. The intent is not to choose specific alignments because factors such as future demand, construction and operational issues, interaction between proposals and cost will be dealt with in detail in a Phase 2 study, if approved, later in 2016.
Presentation materials for these meetings are not yet available online. When they are published, I will update this article.
This phase has a very tight turnaround because a report will go to Executive Committee as part of the overall review of transit proposals on June 28, 2016, and thence to Council in July.
Steve Munro 
I remember, waaaay back, in one of the myriad of proposals for eastern transit development that ended up being used as so much insulation for cottage shacks, that there was a consideration of extending Kingston Rd track east (then west again along Eglinton to Kennedy Stn….yiiich!) and then in turn connecting this service to the downtown by some sort of waterfront divination. Any idea whether revitalizing Kingston Rd. services is still being considered?
Steve: No, it is not. Frankly, if someone needs to get from southern Scarborough to downtown, they should be on GO Transit, but you know the whole story of “we don’t do local trips” from that quarter.
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A GO station at Park Lawn? Why is Waterfront Toronto contemplating their navel over this? It’s in a three-way competition with Mimico and Kipling, which I don’t see it winning. There are too many ‘fixed points’ in the area with the underpass of the Gardiner, overpass of Park Lawn, and the Humber bridge. You need around 100m on either side to spread the rails and 320m for an island platform. It’s 400m from the Gardiner to Humber, so one would need to be rebuilt. What is the marginal improvement over the current Mimico location?
Steve: It’s not Waterfront Toronto per se, it’s the many competing interests for new stations, and the dream that with electrification trains will be able to stop at every lamp post. Park Lawn is in the middle of the massive and growing development around Humber Bay.
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Of course, if the extension went up Midland to reach Kennedy with a link to Scarborough GO station and all Kingston streetcars went no further west than Woodbine loop, that might be different. However, that’s getting dangerously close to “lines on a map” thinking.
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This is good news that we are making some progress on Waterfront transit but I think that we need more studies before we commit our tax dollars to them. Meanwhile, let’s get started on shovel ready projects like the Scarborough subway and the Yonge subway extension to Richmond Hill.
Steve: Both Richmond Hill and Waterfront East have completed EAs with design work up the level needed to support this, but not construction. Scarborough is little more than a line on a map and is nowhere near “shovel ready”.
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At this point vastly more money has been spent on various Scarborough subway studies than the DRL and so as Steve says, the Scarborough subway is indeed more than a line on a map. I do agree with Jeremy that we need several more years of detailed studies and public consultations before moving forward on any new Waterfront transit.
Steve: But we have a completed EA for the Waterfront, which is a lot more than you can say for Scarborough.
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Feed the beast & starve the least. Sigh.
Cant wait to see these areas continue to grow vibrantly in the next 20-30 years. Like it’s been said here by the DRL fanatics that Greater Scarborough should just be happy they’ll benefit by being closer to quality public transit everywhere else which will help them to get to all these amazing locations seeing much greater levels of quality growth spurred on by yep…. TRANSIT
For Scarborough when your choice is poorly integrated & funded LRT hack lines vs. “lines on the map” or Political gamesmanship It almost make the first option look acceptable. But sorry it’s not. It’s a complete sham.
Tory’s latest reasoning for going down to a ONE stop SSE extension was that the outside of Scarborough Politicians the 3 stop (most of whom have transit and want more) would never pass the vote. Unreal.
And if this latest tactic by this outside group to re-review the above ground possibly for the SSE actually finds turn over a new leaf the end result should be to build it to at least Markham/Miner or better yet Malvern TC since it will be on the original SLRT & use the remainder of funds to try to extend the crosstown to UTSC if “possible”. But hey that’s just me trying to improve the latest Napkin plan by a Planner who seems to be looking to earn political stripes with Scarborough as the pawn once again.
Tory is slowly caving back into their hands of those with outside of Scarborough interests & it will be interesting to see what progress actually occurs before next election.
Steve: I agree that if there is to be a subway in Scarborough, then it should be underground. The surface option is all smoke and mirrors. That said, I would remind you (and other readers) that I am not a “DRL fanatic”. If anything, I see the biggest impediment to the DRL these days being the so-called “SmartTrack” line which (a) will never provide the level of service matching the election literature and (b) will not provide the kind of “relief” the existing subway system needs. We can debate a Scarborough transit network independently of the DRL.
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And meanwhile, just completed, and on the PWIC agenda, a blast from the past of the local road of the Front St. Extension, and as they never ever ever ever thought of transit, nor were there any requirements to think of transit despite the piecemealing off of the local road (what are Official Plans and Places to Grow), maybe we’ll get an unfunded road on a critical linkage for a transitway in from the west end. I’m pretty sure we don’t have political will to take away a bit of space from the cars on the Gardiner/Lakeshore for a busway, or a more robust LRT (I’m pretty sure the Gardiner could handle it), we need a new corridor, and subway will take too long to do given the crises everywhere. So a Front St. transitway, or variation, is sitll a good idea, just hey, there’s no time. There’s only been how many years?, and then hurry up and make more mistakes by end of June, and ignore options because doing things differently and having new ideas emerge (c. 1985 might be new hmm?), takes some thought, and there’s not the money anyways to consider a new idea. We have to pay for the Scarborough Subway and the Gardiner now….
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Sadly, the failure to preserve the old freight shed corridor between Front & Spadina and Wellington West means that a Busway/LRT won’t work if you want to turn the Front Street extension into a transit corridor.
Steve: I don’t know how many times I pointed that corridor out to various politicians and planners, but with the DRL always an idea downplayed by the TTC, nobody did anything to preserve this link.
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