Metrolinx plans along several of its corridors have provoked community opposition and proposed alternative schemes, but Metrolinx has been quite intransigent about “just getting things built”, the mantra of the Ford government at Queen’s Park. Opposition is not merely steamrolled, but is painted as anti-transit, out of touch, and nimbyist in preventing the wider population from enjoying the benefit of new transit lines.

This does not endear Metrolinx to many groups (and they stretch well into the 905, not just central Toronto), but Metrolinx does not care. For them, it’s all about managing the message. Most communities just roll over and give in to an unstoppable force trying to make the best of a bad situation. “Consultation” amounts to picking the colour of the tiles for a bathroom reno, and hoping that the contractor actually installs the ones you selected.

Several sites along GO corridors and the Ontario Line have been subject to tree clearing either to open construction sites, or to remove trees that will conflict with electrification infrastructure. A small grove at Osgoode Hall, although far from the largest area Metrolinx has cleared, received much publicity because of its location. The northeast corner of Queen and University is a park beside one of Toronto’s oldest buildings, a green space complementing the square at City Hall just to the east and a more recent arrival, Campbell House, to the west.

Although the park was owned by the Law Society of Ontario, the portion Metrolinx requires was expropriated for the Ontario Line. The community around Osgoode Hall (a mix of the legal profession, the local BIA, residents and heritage advocates) convinced Toronto Council to undertake a review of Metrolinx plans in comparison with alternative designs that would preserve the treed parkland.

This report was produced by a consulting firm, Parsons, and was posted on the City’s website on February 4. It exists in two formats:

• Ontario Line Osgoode Station Headhouse Location Review
• Ontario Line Osgoode Station Headhouse Location Review Presentation

An interim injunction, in force until February 10, paused the felling of trees at Osgoode Hall for a time. Other locations have not been as lucky, nor have they had groups like the Law Society capable of taking on Metrolinx.

An important distinction for this site is that it also contains a heritage building, and there are concerns for potential damage Osgoode Hall might suffer from the overall construction plans. However, the injunction itself only applies to the trees, and it is not clear whether the wider issue of construction effects will form part of the broader argument when the application is heard.

Among the legal issues will be whether a heritage site with mixed ownership (the Law Society, Metrolinx and Ontario) can be treated as “indivisible” for the purpose of heritage preservation so that one owner, the LSO, can prevent changes on property of another owner, Metrolinx. There is also the question of whether Metrolinx can even be bound by an injunction as it is one of many agencies that are exempt from many provincial regulations.

In Brief

• An interim injunction pauses work until February 10, with possible extension, pending further review.
• The Parsons report commissioned by the City was published at the last moment, and was seized upon by Metrolinx to justify commencement of work on the same day as the injunction hearing.
• Parsons concurs that the Metrolinx proposal is the best of those analyzed, but suggests that an alternative using the Campbell House site should be studied in more detail.
• The Campbell House option would effectively displace the house from its location, and it is doubtful that it could return in as harmonious a setting as it has today.
• Parsons does not afford the same treatment to the Osgoode Plaza proposal even though this is the major contender among the alternatives.
• The City’s inaction on the proposed Osgoode Plaza is an (almost) missed opportunity to make the new station and the intersection into a major site downtown. If this is to be pursued, prompt action by the City is needed so that Metrolinx could adjust their construction plans accordingly.

If City Council, and most importantly Mayor Tory, are serious about an alternative to the Metrolinx plans for Osgoode Station, they should proceed as quickly as possible to endorse the Osgoode Plaza scheme and work with Metrolinx to adjust construction plans for Osgoode Station on the basis of road space on University Avenue that the plaza will free up.

In the presentation accompanying the report, the Osgoode Plaza option is shown first, and it is dismissed for various reasons notably the absence of detailed studies because the City has not yet embraced the proposed reconfiguration of University Avenue. Rather than recommending that the potential of this scheme be examined in greater detail, Parsons rejects it. This effectively prejudices the report to endorse the Metrolinx scheme as the only viable option, with a faint hope alternative that is worse than the original.

The Parsons Report’s Conclusions

Parsons states that the Metrolinx proposal is the best of those considered, although an alternative deserves more study.

The proposed site for the headhouse as located at ‘Location A – Osgoode Hall Site’ would appear to be the best qualified option for the design of the station; as it provides sufficient at-ground pedestrian and traffic flow at the critical westbound streetcar stop as located at University Avenue on Queen Street West, with a workable design for both the keyhole excavation site and the vertical circulation needed to connect the existing Line 1 concourse level with that of the Ontario Line.

While there are both temporary operational concerns during construction; together with both built and natural heritage concerns with the use of the Osgoode Hall site for the construction of the proposed headhouse on the northeast corner of the intersection, none of the other location options, as reviewed here, have proven themselves as being suitable for the development of a station design that meets the full set of criteria as analyzed in this review.

Location A causes irreversible damage to the integrity of the heritage resource, Osgoode Hall. There will be permanent loss of the heritage boundary, natural heritage, prominent views, and heritage fabric. These impacts can be mitigated with an interpretation plan, planting of new trees, the placement and height of the new headhouse and reinstatement of the fence. However, it should be recognized that there is a loss to this Federally, Provincially and Municipally recognized heritage resource.

The graphic material provided by Metrolinx for ‘Location B – Campbell House Site’ would suggest this site would benefit by a more fulsome review of the northwest corner site as a reasonable alternate location for the station building for Osgoode Station. The material provided by Metrolinx states categorically that the keyhole excavation cannot fit on the site as shown and shows the keyhole excavation site and the laydown space unmoved from their original location on Osgoode Hall property. It is suggested that Metrolinx provide a design for the Campbell Site location that relies on the same design criteria used by ‘Location A – Osgoode Hall Site’ that proves its lack of suitability, and thereby continues to rely on the Osgoode Hall site as a site for keyhole excavation and construction laydown activities.

Source: Parsons report at p. 34

Metrolinx seized on this as endorsement of its plans and began work at the site without waiting for review of the report by City Council. Metrolinx claims that they had only agreed to await the report’s publication, a position not shared by community groups nor by the Court.

In his ruling on the injunction application, Judge Chalmers observed:

Why commission a report if it is not going to be considered? The Parsons report was not released until the morning of the injunction hearing.

Source: LSO v Metrolinx ruling at par. 38

The question, however, is whether the conclusions should be accepted at face value, and whether Parsons fully examined the alternatives. In their review, Parsons notes that the City plans for reconfiguration of University Avenue have not been officially endorsed and that the proposed “Osgoode Plaza” on the east side of the existing street cannot be counted on as part of the station design decision.

This compromises the conclusion that only the Campbell House option “B” is a viable alternative.

Moreover, that scheme would effectively result in the removal of Campbell House from its current site along with the existing greenery around it. Option “B” requires that the house be “temporarily” moved to allow construction, and even if it were returned, it would share the site with a new subway entrance building. If the house moves, this should be a one-time effort to a new permanent location, although this would break the link between Osgoode Hall and the house of the first Chief Justice of Upper Canada (now Ontario).

Endorsement of the Campbell House option allows Parsons to appear to be providing an alternative, but one that is at least as unpalatable as the original.

As a general observation, the Parsons report is littered with typos and badly-edited text suggesting a rushed process with only light review.

[Historic note: Campbell House was originally located in the old Town of York at what is now the intersection of Adelaide, formerly Duke, and Frederick Streets. It was moved to its present location in 1972.]

The Metrolinx Proposal

Metrolinx’ design for Osgoode Station is shown below in illustrations from Metrolinx News. The proposed new main entrance (aka the “headhouse”) is on the northeast corner of Queen and University, and there is a secondary entrance on the southwest corner of Queen and Simcoe.

Both of these entrances will be accessible, an important point considering that they provide paths to the westbound and eastbound streetcar stops on Queen. Escalators are clearly visible in the drawings, and there are also elevators although they are not as obvious.

A caveat about the the proposed entrance shown on the left below is that it has no mechanical equipment on the roof for the elevators. If Metrolinx were to change the design, this would further interfere with the view of Osgoode Hall.

The drawing below shows a cutaway view of the structure. The existing Osgoode Station is under University Avenue on the east side of the street and much of the station box lies north of Queen Street.

Three of the four existing exits are shown here:

• Two on the west side of University Avenue in the sidewalk are reached via a short tunnel under the west side of the street from the station concourse. They are stairways only.
• One on the southeast corner is accessed through the Four Seasons Centre (Opera House) and includes a connection to the elevator from the parking garage below to street level. There is no escalator.

The fourth entrance, a stairway in the east sidewalk north of Queen, will be replaced by the new north entrance.

There will be a small expansion of the existing concourse and provision of added ventilation at the north end of the station.

Although the excavation for the north entrance building is very deep, the public area only goes down five levels to the point where a passageway will run across the top of the new station and link down to the shared centre platform. The additional levels below the public area only exist in the north entrance building, not in the south entrance at Simcoe Street.

The drawing below shows the Metrolinx proposal in plan view. An important issue about this site is that the existing subway station lies under the median and the western part of the northbound lanes. That structure creates a limit on the location of any new access shaft (aka “keyhole”) down to the Ontario Line.

Not shown are many underground utilities that constrain any new station. Relocation is usually possible, but everything must still fit under the intersection.

There are two areas within the Osgoode Hall grounds that are affected:

• The “keyhole” which will be used for construction access to the tunnel and which will become the site of the new north entrance. This is on the corner of the site, and is the area where most of the affected trees, notably the oldest of them, are located.
• A “laydown area” for staging construction materials. This is on the lawn west of Osgoode Hall.

An important consideration for construction is that these two areas be near each other to simplify movement of material into the tunnel. If the main construction access moves to a location west of University, then a laydown area on the east side will be difficult to use and will add traffic around the site to shift material between the laydown and the keyhole. The laydown ideally should be large enough to hold enough inventory that underground construction is not delayed waiting for resupply.

With respect to park restoration, the future structure in the keyhole area will be quite close to the surface. This makes planting new trees that will have deep root systems impossible and the area cannot be regenerated in its current form even over a long period.

Circulation Within the Station

The Parsons report flags issues regarding the general design of the station. Most striking among them is that there is no direct connection between the Line 1 and future Ontario Line platforms. Riders transferring between the two subways must do so via the existing concourse level rather than directly from one platform to another.

One cannot help noticing how Metrolinx hyped the easy connections between GO and the Ontario Line at Exhibition and East Harbour stations, but does not make similar provisions connecting with the existing subway at Osgoode and at Queen Stations. This is a direct result of the depth of the Ontario Line tunnel and the difficulty of retrofitting a direct link into the Line 1 platform at Osgoode.

The existing Osgoode Station concourse provides an underpass at the intersection that could be part of a future PATH expansion. However, the Simcoe entrance connects only with the deep Ontario Line station, not with that concourse.

A rider entering at Simcoe would have a roundabout route to the existing Osgoode Station on the University line – down to the Ontario Line platform, east to the main entrance, up to concourse level, and then down to the University line platform. There is a rough analogy to the arrangement at Bloor-Yonge station where the west entrance on Yonge Street only connects to the Line 2 (BD) platform and sees comparatively little use. However, the Ontario Line station is much deeper and the route more circuitous to the Line 1 platform.

Direct access from the street to the concourse and Line 1 is available through the existing exits on the SW corner of the intersection near the future Simcoe entrance, but these are only stairways.

The Simcoe entrance will include fare barriers at street level precluding it from being part of an underground pathway system.

The depth of the station (about 30m below ground) makes reliable accessibility an important part of the design. Redundancy is provided at the main entrance on University with triple escalators and dual elevators, but not at the Simcoe entrance.

Detailed pedestrian flow simulations are not available for all of the configurations, although there ar concerns that future demand will overwhelm some options especially for street access on the northeast corner of the intersection.

Options Reviewed By Parsons

Although a cursory pass through the Parsons report might give the impression that Metrolinx reviewed these options equally, there are several cases where Parsons says that Metrolinx provided inadequate details to answer questions about their viability. Readers should beware of assuming that all of these have received the same level of design review.

Although there are nine options, in practice there are common issues ruling out most of them, particularly if the goal is to shift construction out of the Osgoode Hall lands.

If the laydown area shifts away from its proposed location, this will almost certainly require more extensive street closure as there is no comparable off-street area. An advantage of the Osgoode Plaza scheme is that by assuming part of University Avenue will be closed to traffic anyhow, this area is made available during station construction.

A common issue with all options is the need to provide two separate paths from street level down to the Ontario Line to meet fire code, and these cannot be side-by-side at platform level. This brings constraints on the location of entrances at the surface to ensure separation underground.

Another common issue is the size and impact of the “keyhole” for the main construction access and future vertical links into the station. One option Parsons considered was to remove spoil from excavation of station caverns and to deliver material from other locations on the route through the tunnels. However, this would require that a nearby access point would be completed to the point it could be used with a temporary railway (the same sort of thing used during tunnel construction). This would delay the start of Osgoode Station construction until enough of a nearby access was completed to the point of being reliably available.

Several considerations drive the need for a large keyhole and these are described in the report.

While the latest proposed design iterations provided appear to suggest the permanent keyhole excavation size can be mitigated somewhat by shifting it closer to the Line 1 station/tunnel box (at the trade-off of increased project risk), the size of the excavation pit is driven by several factors which may not be able to be mitigated, including the need to accommodate life safety issues such as fire exits, Traction Power Substation (TPSS), Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) extraction and spoils removal due to requirements related to the transition from bored tunnels to SEM mining techniques for the running tunnels east of Osgoode Station.

Source: Parsons report at p. 19

This raises a few points about the station design and the planned tunnel construction:

• A substation will be included within the future structure.
• The tunnel east from Osgoode Station (presumably to Albert Street which is the west limit of the new station at Queen and Yonge) will be mined.
• The tunnel boring machines which will start at the Exhibition will be removed at Osgoode Station rather than continuing east. The keyhole must be large enough to accommodate this.

The overall ranking by Parsons [at p. 18] for constructability is:

• Tier 1 – Good
  • Location A – Osgoode Hall Site
  • Location B – Campbell House Site
  • Location C – University Avenue East Boulevard Site
  • Location I – T.O. Core Site
  • Location J – Osgoode Plaza
• Tier 2 – Reasonable
  • Location E – Four Seasons Centre Site
  • Location F – Bank of Canada Building Site
• Tier 3 – Challenging
  • Location D – University Avenue Median Site
• Tier 4 – Very Challenging
  • Location G – Simcoe Street Only Site
  • Location H – Canada Life Building Site

Note that other considerations such as pedestrian circulation patterns and volumes affect the overall evaluation and they are not reflected in the list above. There are many more issues addressed by the report, but the following sections give an overview of the options reviewed.

Location B: Campbell House

This option shifts the main entrance building to the northwest corner of the intersection on the Campbell House lands. The house itself would have to close and possibly be relocated during the extended construction period. Even after it reopened, it would be immediately behind the entrance and would lose its view from Queen as a house sitting in grounds.

The Osgoode Hall lands would still be required during construction for a link down to the Ontario Line station, but the residual structure would be much smaller and entirely within the existing sidewalk. This does nothing for the trees because a similar area is needed as in Location “A”. It is not clear what facilities would be in the area under the garden after construction is completed.

The laydown area on the west lawn might, according to the report, be replaced with use of southbound lanes on University Avenue as shown below, although the capacity of this space might be less than required.

In this scheme, the primary vertical link would be west rather than east of the intersection.

This really does little to address the overall design problem, enlarges the area subject to construction disruption, and permanently impacts the Campbell House site.

Location C: University Avenue East Boulevard

In this scheme, the entrance building within the garden is replaced by two entrance structures within the east sidewalk. As with the Campbell House option above, a large keyhole area is required for construction even though the garden could be restored afterward. Parsons notes that the Metrolinx plans do not give enough information about the structure under the garden to determine the available headroom for root systems and hence whether trees could be re-established here after construction.

The plans do not show how accessibility would be provided in the split entrance, nor where the vertical circulation from the street to the Ontario Line platform is located. The entrances appear to occupy a considerable portion of the sidewalk.

Location D: University Avenue Median

In this scheme, the main entrance would be in the median of University Avenue where the pool and the South African War Memorial are now. This scheme would require all riders using this entrance to cross traffic to reach the station. Moreover, any surge load coming from the station would have limited area to gather on the median while they awaited a clear traffic signal.

The construction keyhole and laydown areas remain on Osgoode Hall lands. This option does not address the problem of avoiding the site.

Location E: Four Seasons Centre

In common with location “B”, Campbell House, the Four Seasons option uses an exit within the sidewalk on the northeast corner. One of the proposed southeast exits already exists, but is walled off behind a ventilation grate. It was retained after the link to the Four Seasons Centre was built. These exits add capacity to the southeast corner of the station to offset the smaller northeast entrance, but otherwise do not shift the keyhole nor the laydown area off of the Osgoode Hall lands.

It is not clear how this scheme would provide accessible paths from the street to platform level.

Location F: Bank of Canada Building

In this scheme, the main entrance and construction access would be through the existing Bank of Canada site on the southwest corner. A smaller entrance would be retained on the northeast corner as in options “B” and “E” above.

Construction would stay off of the Osgoode Hall lands.

The major challenge here is that there are plans to redevelop this site as a 54-storey condo and the timing of construction would have to be co-ordinated with the Ontario Line. There would be physical limits depending on how much of the existing façade was to be retained in the new building.

Two separate entrances to the same station one short block apart is not an ideal configuration especially if they do not connect to the same station platform (the Bank of Canada entrance to the upper, Line 1 concourse and the Simcoe entrance to the lower, Ontario Line platform).

Location G: Simcoe Street Only

This configuration shares the same northeast street entrance with previous options, and makes the Simcoe Street entrance the only major new connection to the station. This is not ideal with the entrance a block west of the station and a connecting passageway under the south sidewalk of Queen Street linking to the existing entrance passage.

There could also be accessibility issues with the lack of redundancy planned in escalators and the elevator for the Simcoe entrance.

From a construction point of view, nothing is shown for laydown space on the streets, and a good chunk would have to be taken somewhere to provide this. The Osgoode Hall lawn remains a possibility, but this would involve trucking material a considerable distance from the laydown area to the main shaft down to the new station.

Location H: Canada Life Building

No drawing is provided for this proposal.

The scheme would repurpose the existing Starbucks on the northwest corner of Queen and Simcoe as the headhouse for the station. A basic problem with this scheme is that it does not address the need for a keyhole and laydown area to build the vertical access down to the station. Given the location, this would have to be in Simcoe Street.

With a planned entrance immediately to the south through the former Bank of Commerce building, it does not make sense to have a second entrance right across the street.

Location I: T.O. Core Site

This option assumes the reconfiguration of University Avenue to swap the northbound traffic and median areas to create pedestrian space on the east side. This is a smaller scale version of the Osgoode Plaza scheme (location “J” below). Although it would allow the north keyhole to be shifted westward, it does not eliminate the incursion into the park. The degree to which the treed area could be restored would depend on the headroom above the new structure below grade after construction.

There is a concern that shifting the keyhole westward would create problems for the existing Line 1 station box that would require structural support with a large open pit close by.

Parsons raises the question of the strength of the City’s support for the street realignment proposal.

This option aligns with the city’s emerging vision for the future of University Avenue; however, this vision is in the early stages of development and does not have standing as a clear direction from the city.

Source: Parsons report at p. 15

Location J: Osgoode Plaza

The Osgoode Plaza scheme would shift the laydown area into the northbound lanes of University Avenue which would eventually become open space for pedestrians.

University Avenue would be modified by shifting the northbound lanes into the area now occupied by the wide, but underused, median. Eventually, the widened pedestrian area would extend from at least Richmond Street on the south up to the north limit of the Osgoode Hall grounds or beyond. In effect, the northbound lanes and the median, which are comparable in width, would swap positions to consolidate pedestrian space on the east side of the street.

This design shares some of the structural issues with Location “I” above because the access keyhole would be close to the existing subway structure.

It is odd that Parsons speaks of this in stronger terms for the Osgoode Plaza site than the smaller T.O. Core site.

The keyhole excavation site for this option would be located very close to the existing Line 1 Osgoode Station/tunnel structure, which will introduce substantial construction risk to the project. There would likely be a significant delay to the station schedule, if not that of the entire line; due to the work involved with planning and construction a major piece of civic infrastructure.

Source: Parsons report at p. 17