Toronto LRT Information Blog

The City of Hamilton is preparing the environmental assessment for its east-west “B-Line” rapid transit project along Queenston Road, King and Main Streets between Eastgate Square and McMaster University. As part of the transit project assessment process, the City is hosting several public information centres, where members of the public can learn more and talk to City staff about the project.

More information on Hamilton’s LRT projects can be seen here.

Here are the upcoming Public Information Centres (PICs):

• Monday, August 15, 2011
  6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
  Sackville Hill Senior’s Centre
  780 Upper Wentworth Street, Hamilton
• Tuesday, August 16, 2011
  6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
  The Grand Olympia Hospitality & Convention Centre
  660 Barton Street, Stoney Creek
• Wednesday, August 17, 2011
  12:00 PM (noon) – 8:00 PM
  Hamilton Convention Centre, Albion Room
  1 Summers Lane, Hamilton
• Thursday, August 18, 2011
  12:00 PM (noon) – 8:00 PM
  Hamilton Convention Centre, Albion Room
  1 Summers Lane, Hamilton

June 27 update:

I attended the June 27 meeting, where about 35-40 people were in attendance. These meetings are part of the preparation of a secondary plan for land use along the B-Line corridor from McMaster University to Eastgate Square. The plan will establish future land use patterns and urban design direction for areas along the corridor. Some changes to zoning bylaws and regulations may result from this.

The meetings follow design charrettes that took place earlier in the day where a small groups worked with a local architect to come up with some potential future design ideas for the study area. 3D images of these potential ideas were presented at the meeting along with the design goals and concerns that lead to their development.  A discussion took place after the presentation and people were encouraged to express what they liked and did not like about the plan.

Original post continues…

Unlike people in Toronto or York Region, the folks in Hamilton will have a chance to bring their vision for a light-rail transit corridor to life during a series of public meetings around six key neighbourhoods along the proposed route. As mentioned in this article from the Hamilton Spectator, the following LRT Design Workshops will be taking place:

• Longwood Road and Main Street West study area
  Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church
  1107 Main St. W. (at Cline Avenue)
  Tuesday, June 21, at 7 p.m.
• The Queenston Traffic Circle and Parkdale Avenue study area
  St. Columba Presbyterian Church
  1540 Main St. E. (at Weir Street)
  Thursday, June 23, at 7 p.m.
• Dundurn Street and King Street West study area
  The Scottish Rite Round Room
  4 Queen St. S. (at King Street)
  Monday, June 27 at 7 p.m.
• The Delta and Ottawa Street study area
  Delta United Church
  47 Ottawa St. S.
  Tuesday, June 28 at 7 p.m.
• Wentworth Street and King Street East study area
  Festival Banquet Centre
  747 King St. E.
  Tuesday, July 5 at 7 p.m.
• Nash Road and Queenston Road study area
  Red Hill branch of the Hamilton Public Library
  695 Queenston Rd.
  Wednesday July 6, 7 p.m.

Current view of King Street

Yesterday, it was announced that $9 billion of the provincial government’s infrastructure funding in last week’s budget will be going to transit in the GTHA. Now that a day has passed since that announcement, I have managed to let its details sink in, because it was not exactly clear-cut about what this fully entailed and what it didn’t. A fair bit of interpolation and extrapolation is necessary, along with piecing in various bits of other information. (more…)

I was contacted this week by David Couture of Hamilton Light Rail, for which I have since added a link on the main page of this site. I told him I have been a bit remiss in changing my GTAs to GTHAs, and had very little on this site about LRT plans for Hamilton. I noted that my ability to gather such information is somewhat limited, so I rely on people closer to the situation to pass things on to me. This is why I am adding this posting: if anyone has any new information on anything LRT (or transit in general - fare integration is a bit topic with me!), then by all means pass it on to me. Either a comment to a blog entry, or directly in an email to lrt@daxack.ca.