The Missing Pieces in Toronto’s Waterfront Transit Network 

It's frustrating how the transit establishment in Toronto seem to consistently make baffling decisions for no good reason when smarter choices are blatantly obvious. The overemphasis on Union station as a unique hub to the detriment of transit along the entire waterfront is disappointing. I know this video is about the new reclaimed island but even on the western waterfront... I used to put off visiting my friend near Parkdale because of the lack of higher order transit.

It's soo incredibly frustrating how in NA mass transit is a literal afterthought in many cases, when the truth of the matter is if the transit it built among the first things laid into a new area, that ALONE will attract a ton of people to want to live and work nearby it. Our governments unfortunately still seem to cater to the car industries when more and more people would prefer to do away with them entirely. Roads are literally the first things built, yet mass transit goes in AFTER the location is built up, increasing costs and complexity? It's completely backwards. Building a rail system in blank land quick and cheap, and then designing the buildings around IT should be the thought process. -.-

It is great to see Reece being sponsored by the BIA to advocate for what the neighborhood needs!

The transit plan should also continue to the Beaches and southern Scarborough, which have been brutally isolated and underserved for decades.

Toronto Waterfront looks to me to be a bit like London Docklands. The difference there is that the Docklands Light Railway was built first, and everything else was built around it. When I first rode on in shortly after opening, I was riding through a giant building site. At Canada Square, it runs through the middle of a couple of buildings, they were there, but most of the other buildings weren't.

As someone who goes to George Brown down by the waterfront, it's easier to walk the 10 minutes to Union than take the bus. BUS ARE PACKED

Toronto just needs a wholistic, integrated, multi-modal plan. It needs a TFL of sorts, that can create a master plan. I definitely agree with Reece that lessening the reliance on Union is a good thing. Toronto is too Union-centric. Opening a tram line along the waterfront all the way to the east would be a great thing, even if it doesn't go to Union straight away. It's really not a long walk between the two. In fact, I don't know why they are bothering with tram tunnels. Just turn Bay St into a "transit mall" and send trams at street level between downtown and the waterfront, running past Union and the Scotia Bank Arena and saving tons of money digging underground. I know it gets cold in winter, but if you have lots of trams going past and stopping under the Go tracks outside the entrance, it's not going to matter. And it wouldn't kill the area to lose 2 lanes of one street to trams.

Thank you Reece for an excellent presentation. Although the video is focused on a specific area of Toronto, there are two conclusions I draw from it which are applicable worldwide. Firstly, when developing a new area build the new transit provisions at the same time as or (preferably) ahead of the buildings where people are going to live, work or study. Secondly, the new transit provisions need to be carefully integrated both with each other and with the existing systems,

Great video! It's a shame the city still has these holes in transit. Surely, this all could've been done at once instead of having to do bit by bit, then having to work around obstacles!

Only Toronto would approve a massive waterfront development without proper transit connections...

I would love to hear an interview format episode or two, with planners and engineers. I would enjoy hearing answers to questions like "Why didn't we build the transit line earlier?" At least, from those who were in the room.

I second this. Please keep creating these videos to help enlightening the public. Toronto needs to really think about its transit and how to implement it into the city. I feel like the lack of thought and focus on “saving money” has cost us in the long run with the Eglingtin cross town and its multiple contractors… love these recommendations and hope the higher ups take notice!

Brilliant! I hope that you made sure that the TTC and deciders are aware of your proposed plans, they're great. The Cherry station seems a must. Great video as always.

Great fun seeing my neighbourhood depicted in a video. Spotted my condo building in several shots, the wonderful new Unity Fitness gym, and my favourite local cafe Lazy Barista. The waterfront is turning into a great neighbourhood and is going to become a major residential area but it definitely feels like transit has been overlooked for the amount of development going on. Extending the Queens Quay streetcar lines east from Bay Street to the Port Lands seems like an obvious and easy win. No need to wait for any fancy tunneling projects.

Reminds of Griffintown where they built then realise it was missing a few things, like transit. The REM is suppose to open a station or two eventually, this will help. Great take on it Reece!

Cherry Street station needs to at least be roughed in. Your argument for the station makes so much sense. Stop necessity of cars.

This is brilliant! You always amaze me and this one is no different.

Project like what you're proposing is why I'm all for orgs like translink. 1 organization that's running everything, then you don't need to have TTC, metrolinx, etc on board with rolling out inter-connectivity between system. Where i have issues with translink is in instances like the City of Vancouver trying to get an LRT/streetcar loop or 2 up and running and translinks saying nah. :|

Of course you need density to justify the ridership of transit. But if you had already included high density zoning in the planning document, and you’re doing a masterplan, you should build it before building goes up (especially in the case of Toronto)

I wish Reece had the FINAL say about all transit in the GTA

The Portlands in Toronto, use to have a large network of industrial railroad tracks, most of them were ripped out, but there is track that is still there, in the southern portlands, Toronto can just bye some light rail vehicles that can fit on that gauge. Toronto is just missing out on this great opportunity for light rail. Plus, the track runs along what will be future development. Instead of just ripping out the railroad track and then building in a new one for Street cars, just use the remaining infrastructure for the light rail. This light rail line can be one of the most highly used in all of Canada. In Toronto is just missing out on it. Plus the line goes right beside Cherry beach there can be a station there at Cherry Road. I think you should put this railroad line into consideration RM transit. Please respond.

12:41 Love that you caught the guy turning around to check out the woman who just ran past him

This is needed !!! WE NEED THIS ! Thanks Reese for this video, Reese for Mayor!

Oh, Toronto has a Griffintown also. A mounting car sewer close-ish to downtown.

Woolwich is so successful that the only entrance is NOT enough ! Planners are now baffled on why they didn't build the station to eventually prepare a second entrance... Grand Paris Express Line 18 has a couple of places where a future station can be added, one between Palaiseau and the Saclay campus, near the workshop and at the place where the line tansitions from tunnel to viaduct, a place has been reserved where the tracks are flat and straight for a hundred meters and the space around reserved for a future station that can be built there once the neighbourhood is eventually developped. I'd argue that such a place could also be added Westbound after the Campus to serve the neighbourhoods that didn't want the metro but might want it eventually in the future, especially if they develop. Same on Line 14 between St Lazare and Pont Cardinet, a Rome station, linked to the Line 2 one should have been built there but they didn't want to reserve the money for that, however, they modified the project to have a straight and levelled section of tunnel the length of a station, to eventually dig one there if needed one day.

I agree that a tunnel along queen's quay east makes very little sense, at least initially. the road is already overly wide and could easily give up a couple lanes for tracks just like on queen's quay west. This would be far simpler to get installed quickly to service the huge amount of density that's sprung up in that area and could always be buried in the future.

Having tracks be on a slope didn't stop the Boston Elevated Railway from building Aquarium Station and Maverick Stations on slopes at opposite ends of the East Boston subaqueous tunnel (now part of the Blue Line here). Of course, that was well before the MBTA, which always comes up with excuses why things cannot be done.

I guess a rail transit through/to the park makes more sense than a gaggle of bikes.

I would love a subway line through billy bishop and the island going through the new island and down the beaches. Wouldn't that be something

Perfect timing

As great as the REM and REM 3 are, I wish we where as ambitious as Toronto out here. The fact there isn't an EXO Rail to Granby is just wrong.

There should definitely be more rapid transit, and maybe a BART-like line that crosses through this region and downtown Toronto as an express sort of train would do, while further decongesting the existing subway than the Ontario Line. PS Can you do yet another video on buses? What would make an ideal bus network? I'm thinking that the bare minimum would be: - local buses running 10-15 minutes with 400m stop spacing - BRT with fully dedicated lanes and full signal priority, at least every 5 minutes - express highway buses with double deckers running at least every 20 minutes down a bus only lane on the highway so it doesn't get stuck in traffic Can you do an example of a high quality bus network application on some random American city with abysmal transit, like the entire west coast outside of Vancouver and San Francisco and (maybe) LA/Portland, or some random smallish midwest city like Colombus Ohio?

Great video, it often takes over 40 minutes to get from Humber Bay Shores to the entertainment district using the streetcar network. Neighborhoods like Humberbay Shores should have been connected to rapid transit from day one. Plans for a new GO station are currently under review, however, I'm not convinced that will be enough or efficient given the number of towers planned on the old Christie site.

I like this plan..!! Well thought and presented Reece!

This is so similar to what's happened in Boston's Seaport District. Instead of building decent transit, the MBTA built...the Silver Line, basically, a bus line with branches SL1, SL2, and SL3 that starts underground at South Station, has 2 more underground stops that are not terribly convenient for people who live and work in that area, and then emerge as street-running buses for the rest of their routes (in fairness, the SL1 does continue all the way to Chelsea, connects with the Blue Line at airport station and has some dedicated running lanes through Chelsea. However, its use of the Ted Williams tunnel means that it can -and does - suffer serious delays in all that traffic.) The MBTA squandered a great opportunity to build a tunnel under Essex Street linking the Green Line west of Boylston Station and continuing to the Silver Line tunnel at South Station. One or more Green Line Branches (possibly the "C" branch) could have diverted from the Green Line tunnel using the existing bellmouths that were originally constructed in anticipation of the Post Office Square subway (you can see the eastbound bellmouth about halfway between Arlington and Boylston stations on the right side of the tunnel, just before the Green Line vehicles make a sudden slight turn to the right.) New Green Line platforms at Boylston under the existing Green Line platform and under Chinatown on the Orange Line would have provided more connections. At the same time, the existing, unused portion of the Tremont Street tunnel continuing past Boylston should be resurrected, connecting with the Orange Line at Tufts Medical Center - a station that was designed for that very purpose. Diving under the Mass Pike and railroad tracks, that Green Line branch could resurface somewhere along Washington Street, replacing the other, disconnected, SL4 and SL5 Silver Line branches that failed to replace the elevated rapid transit Orange Line trains that provided MUCH better service. But, like Toronto, Boston can't seem to "think big."

Thank you for giving an honest rundown on how ttc can improve

I just want the streetcar to take the unnecessary second lanes on QQE so that the street is no longer used as a lakeshore alternate and can be crossed safely anywhere like in the West.

Can you Please look at the railway system in Kassel(Germany). We don’t have a S-Bahn but we have a RT.

Can you do an explainer on the Wellington NZ Suburban Rail or Auckland NZ rail. Especially Auckland with the City rail link opening.

I always saw the waterfront as a whole as a missed opportunity, hopefully they figure it out.

Great insight! I would love to see an LRT extension out to woodbine beach from the portlands

A little off-topic, but I think this is pretty adjacent, since you're talking about transit in the far south of the city. I think there needs to be a subway underneath Queen Street. Not a streetcar. It should be a subway from Sherway Gardens in the West to the Beach Triangle in the East, and Kingston Rd should also get a subway. new developments should popup along the motel strip on Kingston Rd and that should be made into affordable housing. The same goes for a north-to-south line underneath Don Mills. Don Mills and Coxwell should get its own subway line from Steels down to Queen Street. A lot more of the city also needs its own subway lines, but those two matter the most, in my view. You just reminded me of that with this video about Waterfront TO.

Transit hubs are absolutely important but I wish Torontos transit planners understood Transportation goes beyond that , people don't just need to get to one place to the other , they also want practicality. I don't understand why they didn't just upgrades the streets for streetcars like spadina. Planners really need to think about projects considering all connections in ALL directions not just towards downtown

Generally, in life, it is easier to get the easy work out of the way, then move on to the hard stuff. That's generally how I work, so when I spend hours banging my head to figure out a problem, I have already completed a lot of tasks! In this case adding surface tram tracks is the easy part and upgrading union is the hard part; get the easy stuff out of the way first! 6:17 the time penalty for an extra station on a metro is only about 60-80 seconds. im sure adding well under 1.5 minutes to a trip is fine, if it means extra connections! (Ramble warning!) 11:12 i really hope a lot more infill stations are added to GO on the "inner lines" too! Not just in downtown but the rest of the inner network. For instance around Kennedy you could have another northern GO station serving closer to Scarborough, and this station could use EMU's, (though I think in this particular case the time penalty to have some of the locomotive express trains stop here on the Souffville line is worth it). I think you have mentioned this before somewhere, but I think these "inner lines" could be separate from the "outer express lines" that run with electric locomotives, so you're really not adding anything to the current GO network, that would run with electric locomotives, except electrification and a few stations here and there. So basically, instead, you are adding, or upgrading (Lakeshore west locomotive expresses, that share tracks with VIA and some freight, can manage with 1 pair of tracks, the net addition you're adding to that corridor is one more track to quad track the line so that 2 tracks are for EMUs, which could also manage some freight), tracks so you can have an additional pair (or more!) of tracks to "overlay" the inner sections, that use EMU's. On lines like the Stouffville of Milton lines that are basically branches, locomotives and EMUs can just share tracks. What I would do for a portlands GO station is add just one large island platform, directly above Parliament, that is served by GO Lakeshore East and Stouffville local trains on 1 pair of tracks, with EMU's, while the other two tracks that bypass it are used by GO Lakeshore East and Stouffville express trains, using electric locomotives. The platform could be 230 meters, enough for 3, 4-unit FLIRTs, ~115 meters on each side of Parliament. To access the station from other parts of GO, you can change from an outer electric locomotive express at Scarborough from either line, to an inner local train, with a timed cross platform transfer. (Though, I'm not sure the "timed" is necessary, because I think that if you run a Stouffville local every 15 mins, a Lakeshore local every 15, and an off-peak short-turn Scarborough to Union every 15, you have a 5-minute headway on that portion of track. Even better if you run the locals every 7.5 minutes each at peak its a 3.75 minute headway at peak times) If you're coming from the west, at Union, you do an up-and-over from the electric locomotive express platforms to the EMU local platforms, (which imo should be 2 tracks per direction with 30tph each), to get to the portlands station. Just my thoughts lol.

Yeah went to Cherry St. BBQ the other day and it was Amazing, but it was a pain in the ass to get there and we ended up just taking an uber to get back downtown.

Who benefits monetarily from how things are being done now?

Waterfront East LRT should go further south to serve Rebel night club, Cherry Beach and the Port of Toronto passenger terminal.

hey reece I think you should do a video about the Israeli railways, it has very high quality infrastructure relative to a young network and not enough service on it, and it's expantion plans call to more than double the lenght of the network and people using it, somewhat similar to GO

Reece, what do you think the source of the failure to simply extend the lakeshore line for the time being is? Is it a case of the perfect being the enemy of the good or simple gridlock / inaction?

Watching from India My Dear friend ❤❤❤

Any chance you could do a video on why the GO trains are so slow? Why does Oshawa to Union take longer on the Lake Shore East train than driving? What would need to be done to enable highspeed rail on that route?

Having no station at Cherry St is insane. Corktown is growing to be the one of the bigger neighbourhoods in the cities future yet they say no lol

What about a Hong Kong Style moving sidewalk from union to Queens quay and save the cost of expanding the streetcar loop at union.

What do you think about bringing the island loop up to East Harbour? I feel like this adds the connectivity to a closer GO and Ontario Line than Union? It would also likely be far cheaper than the other downtown stations. I like the idea of other downtown stations, but this feels like it would be a solid compromise in the short term.

Metrolinx should hire you as a consultant I swear.

Everything you say makes complete sense.

Trains Now 🚆

Pronto Toronto

Can you make a south wales metro video?

why is RMTransit not a planner for planning transit in Ontario and Canada? I'm curious as to who is not allowing these projects to be funded

The guy at 12:40 definitely wants Union completed first

Why can’t they just connect to this new line via commissioners st ? Would make more sense since the Leslie barns are there ?

Hmm... it seems that not preparing proper transit lines in new development areas is quite common in North America. I am not saying that that is not happening in where I am from(South Korea), but actually some opposite things are happening as well. I heard that one newly developed area in Busan sucked up most of bus vehicles in good stages because the planners tried too hard to prepare for transit lines in the area, so as a result the existing areas near the newly developed area suffer from old, outdated buses and worsened frequency.

I would be tempted to ask the planners and the councillors who approve these works as afterthoughts if they have a conflict of interest or two? Such as shsres in automotive or road intense businesses such as car sales or trucking., even road construction.

Why don’t use Driverless Trains using the designated Tracks instead as the Streetcars often being affected by traffic. And the network isn’t effectively serves the port area

Can you make a video of istanbul traffic system and what you find good or not and what should be done? Its a huge mega city and chaos and so many systems I as a normal human with no science experience cant even see or judge what is wrong or good and what should be done and what would be the best clean efficient option.

I think toronto harbour should go for a network of underground moving walkways south of cherry staion to harbour . Make it free or charge or whatever . Put Toronto on the map of inovation .

Imagine a high speed ferry from Toronto to Niagara

Is there an organization in Toronto that does the same job you do and is responsible for it - I mean having big picture of the transit system, coordinates and integrates different modes of transit into one efficient system ? Premier, mayor, TTC, Metrolinx - it seems like they all are responsible at the same time and no one in particular, which is inefficient.

How can we advocate for an Ontario line cherry street station?

Agreed

We lived in Liberty village in early 2000s with no transit too. People will give up their cars if they have subways going everywhere like Seoul. Until then, the city is just making life miserable

Everyone catch the boomer at 12:42 checking out the running girl?

indoneisna/jakarta video when?

I would be interested to know practically how you can convince politicians to start budgetting and building it (the planning has been largely done). You've made a compelling argument, but you're preaching to the choir, here, how do we get them on board as well?

Shouldn't there be a subway station on the actual island? The development reminds be of the "Hafencity" in Hamburg, where a part of the Hamburg harbour was turned into a new district. The whole area also is an island and the city built two new subway stations there. Those tunnels of course are very expensive, but those new subway stations make that area so much more attractive to residents and companies.

I pretty much agree with everything said in the video except for the additional GO Station on the east side. That's what East Harbour is supposed to be. Last thing someone commuting from Scarborough needs is more stops getting into-or leaving downtown. As for an Ontario Line at Cherry Street I definitely agree with that. And I've been saying for the past few years on platforms like Reddit and Twitter that it's mind-boggling all levels of government haven't not gone forward with at least getting the surface portion of the WELRT done. Literally the framework is there to get construction going NOW and it'll be done and completed in no time. The Union Station and Bay Street portal can be handled down the line. Many commuters would rather getting the surface level up and going ASAP even if they have to walk 10-minutes from Union (people can also use PATH which stretches down to Bay-QQE). Just an overall idiotic move by the powers that be. That should've been a priority instead of the Line 1 extension into Richmond Hill. Now people living and going to Villers Island naturally buy-or use cars to get there instead.

It's legitimately impressive how terrible the city planning is in Toronto. How anyone approved all of those developments in the east without a subsequent transit option to match the new demand immediately is an achievement only this city could pull off

Toronto will never truly unlock its greatness until major transportation investments into infrastructure are made to connect the entire GTA.

Proper transit is important in that area, as it's currently an ugly car sewer. I utterly hate how the gardener expressway towers over you on cherry street, and it's always felt dead and uninviting. I have high hopes for this project and hope it might spur an extra Ontario line station near the distillery district, which is pretty badly needed given the development of the east waterfront.

Now explain what on earth happened to the lakeshore ramp to the east of the city, and why they aren’t planning on replacing it 🤦🏼‍♂️

Most of the problems with Canada's infrastructure and economy is the extreme federal structure of the governments. There are way too many gatekeepers who need to give their approval to get anything done. I mean really think about, its a country with 40 million people which is small by any measure. To manage the 40 million, we have bureaucracies of 10 provinces and countless cities/towns. Each province gets their own bureaucracies, healthcare services, professional standards and who knows how many other gatekeepers. For reference, California has 40 million people and they have one governer.

Man way to underline the importance of building the transit first. I know of a parricularly infamous case in Aarhus where a new waterfront area was developed with a light rail line in mind. Not even that long just a 2 station branch off the existing system. The right of way was cleared and everything. But the extension was cancelled for no other reason than concerns over car traffic at the intersection where it would meet the other lines. At the time the intersection was mostly congested with people going to a car ferry in these portlands but that ferry terminal has since been moved out of downtown and so the traffic there is lighter now. So what gives.

Its too bad you aren't a consultant to these projects and designs for the region

👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

Downtown LRTs are very slow. What's the obsession with them? That they are more comfy. I hate to say it but buses move faster, cheaper and are more maneuverable on roads sharer with cars. Why not just instead build idk a cut and cover LRT?

I wanted to get downtown last weekend, to the theatre district, Saturday afternoon. As I love transit, it was tempting to take the Go in to Union, then a subway up to King. Unfortunately that means Union Station, while the Jay's are playing. On top of that, the way home would have been through Union while the Jay's game let out, and as Leafs fans came in. We opted to drive. Another station for downtown would have been a big help (Spadina stop, streetcar to King, then another streetcar if weather sucks, or hoof it to theatre if it's nice.) Another Station or 2 downtown would be great.

Once again all I can imagine is an elevated system like Wuppertal's along our waterfront (and of course along King St.). No water drainage problems, high capacity, zero interaction with other traffic and a tourist attraction.

Please electrify the train lines and get high speed rail ^.^

investers are gonna swoop in and buy up all those $1M+ condos that go up there

have you ever considered running for office?

um,the water?

Its so annoying that we are pouring billions into an extension into Richmond Hill rather than funding the waterfront East LRT. Richmond Hill has transit, this area does not. The Ontario line is another dumb thing, in the sense that it is using a different track gauge front the rest of the TTC subway system. so full integration will never be possible. And the lack of a cherry st. station is a glaring oversight too. There will be west harbour station which will be a big hub outside of union. I dont feel that burdening the GO network with more stations is a good idea. The attractiveness of GO is speed. more stations mean slower speeds.

Why are you making this complicated? The streetcars to this new area can get there by just extending the lil cherry st line.

How is it not founded yet 😂

This would be great but I’d love to see the Gardiner Expressway be demolished and replaced with at a grade boulevard and possibly a tunnel. The project would be similar in size scope to Alaskan Way in Seattle and provide huge benefits to the waterfront and downtown

I think city engineers and developers should have 1000 hours playing Cities Skylines before they take on a project like this.

the thing about this place is that its for the rich. Some new condos there start at 2 million.

Carrots

When GO electrifies they'll most likely get electric locomotives hauling the Bombardier bi-level coaches. I can't see GO getting EMUs anytime soon. Not when they're spending so much money on refurbishing the bi-level coaches. I'm not a fan of adding so many GO stations downtown, cause it'll make the trips longer for people coming further away. The GO train becomes less competitive with driving.