LRT Projects

by

Waterfront West and the Front Street Extension

The Environmental Assessment for the western extension of the waterfront line will get underway soon with the usual preparatory phase of creating the Terms of Reference.  This brings to mind a note I received a while ago from Hamish Wilson, long time opponent of the Front Street Extension, and begs the question of whether the transit EA can be used to revisit options for the corridor as a whole much as the EA now in progress for the Airport Link has widened out to a general review of the northwest corridor.  Continue reading →

by

Waterfront East and Scarborough RT Updates

The draft Terms of Reference for the Environmental Assessment of the eastern waterfront transit plans goes to the TTC for approval next Wednesday.

This draft is the product by much work in full public meetings as well as a community consultation group.  I must commend the team who worked on the draft for their openness to changes, expansion in scope and generally inclusive approach.  The stage of building a ToR can be extremely tedious, but it is vital to ensure that all of the alternatives are considered in the EA itself.  This is a refreshing change from the St. Clair project.

Assuming that the TTC approves the draft, it will go to the Ministry of the Environment for review over the next few months.  While that is underway, some preliminary work will continue collecting information needed for the study and also presenting some technical workshops so that the community can better understand the work behind transportation planning and design.

Meanwhile, the Scarborough RT study is not included on this week’s TTC agenda although it was originally planned for a June presentation.  I suspect that recent events at the TTC coupled with the relatively tighter timelines on the Waterfront studies have pushed the SRT report off into the summer.