[fanoftoronto]

Two new open houses planned for April. The first one is online on 2-Apr regarding the restoration plan along Eglinton West. It says "(e)xperience the different stations interactive elements", and I'm not entirely sure what that means!

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Second is an in person open house at Bala Avenue Community School on 9-April regarding current construction status:
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Only just got some time to review the slides that were reviewed at the virtual open house. Here are some summary points and screenshots.

As it was mentioned by @BrenWilson, the tree clearing is happening now ahead of the breeding season for birds. We have a nice rendering of Islington Station at the same time. Note that these names will be changed at some point.

Below are the clearing areas around each of the underground station. The entire station box will be excavated and most of it will be refilled once construction is complete except for the station buildings themselves. Below is Royal York:

Curiously, in a slide further down in the presentation, they show the northwest corner area of the red box as "Future Development" which is the first time I am seeing mention of additional developments. Transit Oriented Communities anyone? They should be encouraging midrise buildings along Eglinton to increase demand for the ECWE.

The following is for Islington:

The following is for Kipling. A key point for Kipling station is that it will be a skinny station as they are trying to minimize the impact on the woodlot on the north-west corner. If I remember correctly, the tunnels are offset partially onto the eastbound lanes of Eglinton avenue.

And finally Martin Grove station. One point to note is that the secondary entrance on the west side of Martin Grove is not listed in this plan. There is another rendering further down that does show the entrance. Hopefully, it was a miss on this slide and not that they have dropped the west entrance for the station:

This rendering below shows what I think is Martin Grove station with the west side entrance also shown. Hoping this is still the design. Also, it looks like there will be a skylight between the 2 station buildings bringing natural light to the platform below:

A point to note is that the following map shows a modified future extension route than what is currently in the front page of the ECWE Metrolinx page. It shows the line continuing to Explorer drive before veering north towards the airport. My guess is that we should be getting another station at Explorer and Matheson before continuing towards the airport.
The final arrow to the airport also shows it heading towards the Terminal 1 parking garage area instead of Viscount station as was previously shown. This is fully dependant on GTAA as they have not yet decided where the future transit hub is going to be for the airport. I do know that they have gone back to the expansion plans from 2017 for the terminal expansion so maybe that has played a roll in this.

They had a few slides showing potential improvements to the landscaping along the entire line. It is a good thought, but not sure if it will be fully implemented upon completion of the project:

There were a lot of slides showing what the plans are for the vegetation under the elevated guideway on the eastern section of ECWE:

It went into a lot of detail on the types of plants and soil types etc. Not really my area of expertise.

Here was the timeline of activities expected in 2025:

Hope the above summary was good. Feel free to see the full presentation slide deck in this link:
https://assets.metrolinx.com/image/...rtual_Restoration_OH_Slides_April_2_Final.pdf

 

[busybeaver]

single 1 story stand alone stations?! what happened to high density transit oriented development? ..another missed opportunity!

 

[BrenWilson]

but not sure if it will be fully implemented upon completion of the project:

It should be, but I don't think it's fully decided when it will happen. The restoration plan for ECWE is a reaction to some of the low quality restoration efforts seen on ECLRT. Rather than leave the design up to the project contractor(s) Metrolinx commisioned the technical advisor consultant to complete the restoration plan. Still many years to figure out the timing on that.

 

[evandyk]

Are they planning on turning that "Mary Reid House" into a museum or something? Or are they preserving and working around it solely because it was built in 1939?

 

[BrenWilson]

Not sure of the plans for it, but it is a heritage structure, along with the little stone fence in front of it so they are protected.

 

[TOtramz]

Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like the new stations won't have dedicated fare-paid bus bays?
Perhaps they are too close to the line 2 stations or something.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like the new stations won't have dedicated fare-paid bus bays?
Perhaps they are too close to the line 2 stations or something.

you don't really need fare paid zones like you used to pre-PRESTO and if anything they are a risk for fare evasion. Makes sense Metrolinx / the TTC isn't building them anymore.

 

[crs1026]

Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like the new stations won't have dedicated fare-paid bus bays?
Perhaps they are too close to the line 2 stations or something.

The minimal attention to surface bus connections is a real deficit in this project. One doesn't need off-road bus bays with a big structure, but one has to expect that connecting bus traffic will grow and buses will need places to stop and dwell without blocking traffic (the propensity of central Etobicoke residents to complain loudly when anything gets in the path of their cars is well demonstrated)

You can count on TTC using the stops as timing points for bus routes. That means that buses may not simply stop to load and unload, but may have to dwell for several minutes to recover their schedule. I can envision that leading to blockages of traffic lanes especially if 2 or more buses turn up simultaneously. I would have expected much larger pull-offs for buses on all four quadrants of all intersections.

I also wonder about the future potential of mini-bus service into the backstreets - which to me is part of breaking the autocentricity of any traditional suburb. In that case, one might have mini-buses laying over at these stations.

None of this appears to have been contemplated. It's as if nobody expects people in central Etobicoke to connect to buses along this line.

- Paul

 

[TOtramz]

you don't really need fare paid zones like you used to pre-PRESTO and if anything they are a risk for fare evasion. Makes sense Metrolinx / the TTC isn't building them anymore.

I disagree with that. With a fare-paid zone, buses can open both doors which speeds up boarding by 2x.
I think those benefits alone outweigh the cost of hiring a few more fare enforcement officers to check fares after exiting the bus.

 

[innsertnamehere]

I disagree with that. With a fare-paid zone, buses can open both doors which speeds up boarding by 2x.
I think those benefits alone outweigh the cost of hiring a few more fare enforcement officers to check fares after exiting the bus.

Fare-paid bus terminals are ultimately very expensive and land intensive so I get why the TTC avoided them, especially for Eglinton which is expected to operate with a lot lower transfer volumes than Line 1 or Line 2 do.

The better approach would be to enable all-door boarding on buses.

 

[PL1]

Fare-paid bus terminals are ultimately very expensive and land intensive so I get why the TTC avoided them, especially for Eglinton which is expected to operate with a lot lower transfer volumes than Line 1 or Line 2 do.

The better approach would be to enable all-door boarding on buses.

Yes to all door boarding! It's not like the operators challenge people anyway. Increase enforcement, and let us board faster

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

Still nothing about we will handle the increase in pedestrian traffic crossing the roadways, especially at the stations. Will this be in the hands of Toronto's Transportation Services or Metrolinx?

 

[Kyle Campbell]

I disagree with that. With a fare-paid zone, buses can open both doors which speeds up boarding by 2x.
I think those benefits alone outweigh the cost of hiring a few more fare enforcement officers to check fares after exiting the bus.

Fare-paid bus terminals are ultimately very expensive and land intensive so I get why the TTC avoided them, especially for Eglinton which is expected to operate with a lot lower transfer volumes than Line 1 or Line 2 do.

The better approach would be to enable all-door boarding on buses.

Ottawa has had all door boarding for decades, yet they still added fare paid bus zones to the LRT stations, and this was long after the Presto rollout. If you have the space available, it still greatly speeds up the boarding process. They are far less elaborate though than the typical TTC ones, so they don't have to be that expensive

 

[H4F33Z]

Still nothing about we will handle the increase in pedestrian traffic crossing the roadways, especially at the stations. Will this be in the hands of Toronto's Transportation Services or Metrolinx?

I wouldn't be surprised if the city and Metrolinx are coordinating to make every major intersection at stations a protected intersection and with dedicated turning lanes and separated turning phases to separate vehicle turns and peds/cyclists or at least tighter corner radii to slow down turns of drivers. There's already the major cycling trail on the south side of Eglinton, and there's been strong desire from the city to extend cycling facilities on north-south cycling corridors like Martin Grove, Royal York and Scarlett up to Eglinton.

I know for sure Martin Grove/Eglinton will be overhauled to a protected intersection with most turning movements protected due to the very busy roadway nature in the area and the busier pedestrian/cycling volumes with the new station.

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

I wouldn't be surprised if the city and Metrolinx are coordinating to make every major intersection at stations a protected intersection and with dedicated turning lanes and separated turning phases to separate vehicle turns and peds/cyclists or at least tighter corner radii to slow down turns of drivers. There's already the major cycling trail on the south side of Eglinton, and there's been strong desire from the city to extend cycling facilities on north-south cycling corridors like Martin Grove, Royal York and Scarlett up to Eglinton.

I know for sure Martin Grove/Eglinton will be overhauled to a protected intersection with most turning movements protected due to the very busy roadway nature in the area and the busier pedestrian/cycling volumes with the new station.

At Martin Grove and Eglinton, they need two left lanes from eastbound Eglinton to northbound Martin Grove.