The Design Review Panel at Waterfront Toronto recently considered the proposed design for the surface portion of the Waterfront East LRT and Queens Quay reconfiguration now that it has reached the 60% level.

Updated June 6 at 4:10pm:

The presentation decks from the meeting will not be posted on Waterfront’s site, but I have set up a page on this site where those interested can access them. There is far more information about the designs in the presentation decks than I have included here.

This article focuses on aspects of the design affecting the Waterfront East LRT project (WELRT), one of several major City of Toronto priorities that is not yet funded. Toronto hopes to see money for this in the Federal government’s collection of key infrastructure projects, but nothing is certain.

How much of this design will survive the inevitable “value engineering” and reduce acres of green to boring concrete remains to be seen.

Responsibility for this project is split:

• The segment from Union south to Queens Quay is a TTC project, but work on that has stopped at 30% design pending certainty about funding.
• The segments on Queens Quay East, Cherry and Commissioners are split between the Port Lands Flood Protection project (funded) and the WELRT (not funded). Waterfront Toronto is responsible for design of these segments.

Two early works, shown in light blue in the map above, are the reconfiguration of the Yonge Street Slip and the extension of Queens Quay east from Small Street (where it now veers north) to Cherry Street. Readers may recall the overblown Sidewalk Labs proposal for the land around Parliament Slip and south onto Ookwemin Minising (formerly Villiers Island). This design round is far more in keeping with the style and scale of Queens Quay West’s renewal.

In its initial implementation, the WELRT will go as far as the Commissioners Street crossing of the new Don River. Tracks on Cherry will be extended south from Distillery Loop through a new portal under the rail corridor to connect with the line on Queens Quay east from Bay Street. Future expansion in various ways is possible, but how soon this might occur is anyone’s guess given the state of transit funding and the uncertainty of land development schemes. Options include:

• Southern extension via Cherry to Polson Street
• Eastern extension to a planned Broadview extension and thus to:
  • Leslie Barns via Commissioners
  • East Harbour Station on the Ontario Line and beyond to existing trackage on Broadview at Queen Street

This was a design presentation, and issues of constructability and eventual implementation of the WELRT are beyond its scope.

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