On December 7, Toronto’s Executive Committee considered the long staff report on Ontario Line downtown construction effects on which I have previously reported. That report was supplemented by a staff presentation.

To watch the full presentation and debate click here [YouTube link].

Previous articles:

• Ontario Line Downtown Construction: I – Queen Station
• Ontario Line Downtown Construction: II – Osgoode Station
• Ontario Line Downtown Construction: III – King/Bathurst & Queen/Spadina Stations
• Ontario Line Downtown Construction: IV – Moss Park & Corktown Stations
• Ontario Line Downtown Construction: V – Traffic Effects

Although the Building Transit Faster Act gives Metrolinx the power to do whatever it wants in advancing this project, the City hopes that they will be a co-operative partner. Much of the debate turned on the effects of the long-term shutdowns, and to that end a long series of amendments was passed. Collectively, these seek to create a monitoring and reporting structure for the project and to ensure that the scope and duration of its effects are kept to a minimum.

This will be a challenging environment because unlike a TTC project, the primary relationship is between Metrolinx and their P3 partner, generically called “ProjectCo” pending a selection of a successful bidder, and the City/TTC have no power nor contractual relationship to enforce their will on the project.

Media coverage and political reaction has focused on the planned seven year closures at many sites. The staff presentation and comments repeated that the planned closures are the maximum that will be permitted, although what the City might do if the hole in the street has not been filled is anyone’s guess. The procurement includes an incentive to reduce the duration of closures, but it will be some time before we know whether “ProjectCo” will agree to a faster project at some or all of the stations.

This is the fifth and final article in a series reviewing the construction effects of the Ontario Line downtown. It deals with overall issues across the project rather than the specific issues at each station.

In reading the report, there is a sense that working out traffic flows for motorists and trucks took a much higher priority than thinking about transit, pedestrians and cyclists.

The Ontario Line stations are projects on a scale and time frame larger than major building construction projects, and the work will be undertaken by an agency that is not noted for its sensitivity to local concerns. If Eglinton was any indication, there will be plenty of opportunity for finger-pointing between Metrolinx, the City and “Project Co.” (the placeholder name for the yet-to-be-selected P3 partner).

City Led Projects

In addition to the work of building the Ontario Line, there are other planned construction projects downtown. The list below only reaches to 2026.

The following City-led construction projects were included:

• Gardiner Express Rehabilitation – Grand Magazine Street to York Street (2024 to 2026)
• TTC 504 King streetcar track rehabilitation – 2024
• Yonge Tomorrow – Reconfiguration of Yonge Street between Queen Street and College Street
• Sewer Rehabilitation –
  • Richmond Street between Simcoe Street and John Street (2023);
  • Richmond Street between Peter Street to Spadina Avenue (2023);
  • Wellington Street between Clarence Square and Blue Jays Way (2024);
  • Front Street between Bay Street and Scott Street (2024).
• Watermain Replacement –
  • Adelaide Street between York Street and Victoria Street (2022);
  • Dundas Street, between Church Street and Sherbourne Street (2024);
  • Front Street between Bathurst Street and Spadina Avenue (2026).

Congestion

The table below shows the effect of various configurations on traffic volumes and speed for the AM and PM peak periods.

• The Base Case is the existing conditions with no added projects.
• The “Future Background” adds in the City projects listed above, and assumes that they all happen at once. In fact they will take place at different times.
• The “Future Total” adds in the effect of the Ontario Line construction on top of the City projects.

The base number is the projected vehicle count on each corridor at Yonge Street. The number in square brackets shows the existing travel time (Base Case) and the projected change (Future Cases) between Parliament and Bathurst Street.

King is notable by its absence in the table, but it is hard to believe it will not be affected especially with the lack of enforcement of priority measures. It will be under construction in 2024, but in other years traffic will inevitably use any available street regardless of signage or paint on the roadway.

Travel times are already considerably higher in the PM peak than in the AM. The projected changes in the AM peak are small relative to the base case because the road network can absorb the reduced capacity at that time. However, in the PM peak, travel times double (or more) across the core area.

This will have a severe effect on transit service.

Considering the cataclysmic effects shown above, this table bears close scrutiny. An immediately obvious point is that almost all of the change is the result of the City-led projects and the Ontario Line construction adds very little on top of this. But the model assumed that all of the City projects planned out to 2026 would occur at the same time rather than individually.

This is lazy modelling, and it should be redone on a year-by-year basis to evaluate the effect of taking specific chunks out of the road network as planned.

Equally important should be a model run with only the Ontario Line changes included. It is possible that the model with only all of the City projects yields so much congestion that there is no room for “growth” on that account when the OL is added to the mix.

A rather obvious question here is how construction vehicles are supposed to access the OL sites if traffic is so congested during part of the day. Indeed, one might ask whether a moratorium on truck activity during at least the PM peak will be needed.

A well-known characteristic of traffic congestion is that it can build slowly with volume, but at a critical point there is a “knee in the curve” where congestion gets much worse with only a small change in the network. This is seen on a day-to-day basis when all that is needed to snarl an otherwise open road is a curb lane blocked by a delivery truck or utility workers with a few traffic cones.

This is the fourth article in a series about the anticipated effects of construction through downtown of the Ontario Line. Because the stations at Moss Park and Corktown are similar in their construction technique, I have grouped them together.

Both stations will be built as off-street using cut-and-cover rather than mining because the entire station site can be opened for access. Effects on pedestrians are less severe, and transit stops are undisturbed.

However, the scope of work is much greater at Corktown Station because this will be a Tunnel Boring Machine launch site. Not only will this see the excavation of the station itself, but the removal of “muck” from the TBMs as they progress west across the route.

This is the third article in a series about the anticipated effects of construction through downtown of the Ontario Line. Because the stations at King/Bathurst and Queen/Spadina are similar in their construction technique, I have grouped them together.

Two of the four corners at each intersection will be used for excavations down to the tunnels which will exist by the time station construction begins. The plan is to avoid road closures that would disrupt transit service, not to mention capacity on the road network.

This may sound good in theory, but transit service will suffer from new pinch points in the road network, and pedestrians will attempt to make connections between transit routes walking along roadways adjacent to construction zones. Although there are no formal cycling lanes on streets at either station, a substantial volume of cycling traffic now uses curb lane space that will disappear.

In both cases, construction is planned to run from July 2022 until mid-to-late 2029.

• July 2022 to June 2023: Setup, utility relocation and enabling works
• July 2023 to March 2026: Excavation
• March 2026 to September 2027: Below grade concrete work
• Fall 2026 to Fall 2027: Exterior station work
• June 2027 to September 2028: Interior station work
• March 2028 to March 2029: Station fit out and testing

There is no plan to selectively re-open parts of the street once the major works of excavation and concrete pours are out of the way.

An obvious issue for the long term is that no sooner will subway construction decamp from these sites, but new building construction will move in. The loss of sidewalks and road space could continue well into the 2030s.

When I asked the City of Toronto about this, they understandably have no information on the time frame or effects of potential developments of these “Transit Oriented Community” sites to be developed by Infrastructure Ontario.

[…] although these sites have been flagged as TOC’s we don’t currently have any details around these and their construction impacts. If lane closures are required for their construction then reports will need to come forward to City Council at the appropriate time which will spell out the occupations required and impacts.

Ashley Curtis, Director Transportation Planning & Capital Program. Dec. 2, 2021.

This continues the series reviewing the construction plans for downtown stations on the Ontario Line and their effect on roads and nearby properties.

Like Queen/Yonge station described in the previous article, Osgoode connects with the Line 1 subway in a new two-level station. However, the construction approach will be completely different.

The expanded Osgoode Station will be dug from two excavations at opposite corners of the station rather than from access pits in the middle of Queen Street. The primary entrance to the expanded station will be at the northeast corner of University and Queen, a space now occupied by part of the park in front of Osgoode Hall.

A second entrance to the station will be built at Queen and Simcoe and will use the existing bank facade for its exterior.

The diagram below shows a much larger portion of this park to be occupied for construction than was previously thought to be threatened. Compare the orange hatched area below with the next drawing from the June 2021 round of consultations.

This drawing shows “Station Building 1” occupying about half of the frontage on University between Queen Street and the gate to the walkway across the front of Osgoode Hall. In the diagram above, the entire width of this area is taken for construction as well as part of the area north of the walkway along the street, and the lawn in front of the Hall.

Given the effect any work within the Hall’s grounds will have on the park, this is not a trivial change. Quite bluntly, I believe Metrolinx showed the smaller scope in the drawing above because proposing to take so much of the park, even temporarily, would have produced an uproar. They stick handled their way around any discussion of Osgoode Station during the consultation sessions. This has the smell of deliberate misrepresentation.

If anyone is considering a design based on a proposed reallocation of lane space on University and expansion of the east side pedestrian realm, they have been very quiet about it. Conveniently for Metrolinx, this is not a residential neighbourhood with the usual population of critics quick to leap on their proposals.

All of the trees at Osgoode Hall in the photo below lie on lands shown as the construction zone for this project. Civic vandalism in the name of “progress” does not begin to describe this proposal.

Early Works

The main construction work begins in July 2023 with station excavation running to March 2026. The station exterior would not be complete until Fall 2027, and the lane closures would not be undone until sometime in 2029. (See the city’s report for details.)

However, some works must take place in advance of the main project:

• Utility relocation from March 2022 to May 2023.
• Other “setup, preparatory and enabling works” from July 2022 onward. It is not clear just what these entail or which areas of the site would be affected.

At various times in 2022 there will be short-term closures of parts of Simcoe Street and University Avenue (see the list of Early Works closures for details).

Street Restrictions

For much of the project, various lanes and parts of sidewalks will be close or restricted:

• Queen Street road lanes will not be affected.
• On the east side of University to north from Queen (see photo above), the street is now four lanes wide with the curb lane used for a bike path. In this area, the sidewalk will be taken over for construction and pedestrians will be shifted into what is now the northbound curb lane.
• NOTE: The report is unclear about whether there will actually be a cycling lane or not, or when. “The existing northbound curbside bicycle lane on University Avenue fronting the Osgoode Hall will be closed for construction staging purposes. However, the northbound travel lanes on University Avenue will be realigned and a protected 2.0 metres wide northbound bicycle lane around the work zone will be provided.” [p 28]
• On Simcoe Street, the west sidewalk and part of the street will be closed between Queen and the laneway running midblock west from Simcoe. The intent is to use the west side of Simcoe as a staging and storage area.
• The east sidewalk on Simcoe will be narrowed to leave enough room for one traffic lane and a cycling lane, although that lane is not shown clearly on the drawing above.
• Pedestrian access will be maintained in front of the bank/second entrance building along Queen west of Simcoe.

Here is what Simcoe Street looks like today. The bank on the left will become the second station entrance.

Transit Changes

The only explicit changes proposed for this area are the relocation of the westbound streetcar stop east to a point clear of construction, and closing the existing station entrance north of Queen on the east side of University.

The report proposes a westbound York/University stop on Queen, but this would be closely after streetcars have stopped northbound on York at Queen. With the northeast station entrance closed, passengers transfer passengers are more likely to use the southeast entrance (through the Opera House) and a stop on the north side of Queen does not make sense. Better that transfers walk between the Opera House entrance and the proposed stop at York & Queen along the south side of the street.

The eastbound stop on Queen at University will remain.

Metrolinx has not published diagrams of Osgoode station below street level showing how the existing and new spaces and circulation patterns will work.

In the next article, I will review King/Bathurst and Queen/Spadina stations.

This is the first of a series of articles reviewing the plans for construction of the downtown Ontario Line stations between King/Bathurst and Corktown Station. The base document is a report at the Toronto Executive Committee’s meeting of December 7, 2021.

• Ontario Line Downtown Stations – Temporary Road Closures and Community Impacts
• Appendix A – Ontario Line Early Works Construction – Road and Lane Closures for Six Downtown Stations
• Appendix B – Traffic By-law Amendments
• Appendix C – Key Intersection Measures of Effectiveness

This is a long report detailing the effect of multi-year construction at six sites. Beginning with early works in 2022 and continuing to 2029, each of the sites will be at some stage in construction, although the exact timetable varies from station to station.

The project will involve many curb lane closures and associated effects on sidewalks, bike lanes and transit stops. As previously reported, there will be a complete road closure of Queen from Bay to Victoria for the construction of a deep and complex link there to the existing Line 1 Queen Station. Osgoode Station is a less complex project because there are fewer nearby buildings constraining the site, although it has its own challenges.

King/Bathurst and Queen/Spadina are similar to each other in that they will use shafts on two of the four corners of their intersections as the launch points for mining out the station caverns under the street.

Moss Park and Corktown Stations are both cut-and-cover locations, but Corktown has the added complexity of also being a site for the tunnel boring machine launch and for removal of spoil from the tunnel excavation.

Each site has other issues:

• Volume of spoil from the excavations and the routes trucks will use to move material from six concurrent construction sites.
• The constraints on emergency vehicles while road access is limited.
• Local business and residential access.
• Cycling lane effects.

In all of this, we must assume that traffic, transit, pedestrian and cycling demand will be at least at pre-covid levels, although there are likely to be shifts as some traffic “evaporates” in frustration.

This first article will deal with the most complex project: Queen Station. Next will come Osgoode, to be followed by the two western stations at Bathurst and Spadina, and then the eastern stations at Moss Park and Corktown. I will wrap up with a discussion of issues common to all sites.