Donald Higney
The City of Toronto is laying the groundwork for a streetcar transit line along the waterfront. At a public meeting on February 17, stakeholders from the city, the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) and Waterfront Toronto reported on the Waterfront East LRT Extension.
City Council approved the Waterfront Transit Network in January 2018 to bring a new streetcar route along Toronto’s waterfront, from Long Branch in the west end to the Leslie Barns maintenance and storage facility in the east. The portion known as the Waterfront East LRT Extension is from Union Station to the Distillery Loop via Queens Quay East and Cherry Street.
In 2019 council ordered a study on a surface portal location on Queens Quay East to allow underground and street level light transit access. Some of the areas of research include interim transit improvements, updating past environmental assessments, and devising 30 percent of the design concept. The design, business case and cost estimate are to be completed by this fall in time for Toronto’s 2022 budgeting.
The project is organized into three areas. The first is the underground section from the Union Station loop south to Queens Quay at the ferry docks, and the new tunnel extension and portal on Queens Quay east of Bay Street.
The next area is Queens Quay to Parliament Street, overlapping the first area around Bay Street. The final stretch is the unbuilt section of Queens Quay between Parliament Street and the Cherry Street realignment, as well as connecting it with the Distillery Loop.
The city is looking at building a streetcar portal on Queens Quay between Bay and Yonge in front of the Westin Harbour Castle hotel. Under the completed portions of the study they say that it would reduce the impact and costs of construction in the area, reduce traffic on Queens Quay and the Martin Goodman Trail, and enhance the public realm at the foot of Yonge Street. The portal would include a one third partial fill-in of the existing Yonge Street Slip.
With the portal connecting Queens Quay to the underground Union Station streetcar loop, Union and Queens Quay stations would get new entrances and emergency exits.
The cross section of Queens Quay East in the second area of the project will be expanded, adding open planters and expanding the Martin Goodman trail.
Proposed stops on the line include at Bay, Yonge, Jarvis, Sherbourne and Parliament streets.
