Toronto LRT Information Blog

There will be one public meeting dealing with the proposed alignment of the Etobicoke-Finch West LRT at Humber College. Specifically, it involves an official plan amendment dealing with the portion of the line from the intersection of Highway 27 and Humber College Boulevard to a terminal at the campus of Humber College located at 203 to 207 Humber College Boulevard.

It will be at City Hall Council Chamber (100 Queen West) on June 16, 2010. The time will be at 10:15 am, or as soon as possible thereafter. Detailed information regarding the proposal, including background information and material and a copy of the proposed Official Plan Amendment may be obtained by contacting Mike Wehkind at 416-392-8572, or by email at mwehkind@toronto.ca

I will post a copy of the notice when one becomes available electronically, or when I scan in the hard copy I have.

The City of Toronto and the TTC have completed an Environmental Project Report on the Etobicoke-Finch West LRT. A copy of the official notice can be seen here.

The 30-day review period started March 24 and runs to April 22. See the notice for the list of locations where the report may be viewed.  It will be officially available online only until April 22, but I have placed a copy of it here (with file sizes in parenthesis):

• Cover and Table of Contents (98 k)
• Executive Summary (290 k)
• Chapter 1 (1.2 M)
• Chapter 2 (3.1 M)
  • Plates, Part 1 (3.0 M)
  • Plates, Part 2 (3.8 M)
• Chapter 3 (1.1 M)
• Chapter 4 (1.3 M)
• Chapter 5 (46 k)
• Chapter 6 (33 k)
• Chapter 7 (410 k)

• Chapter 8 (28 k)

There are also 19 parts of appendices. I expect to add them here, but for now you can go to the official link.

The display boards (2.5 MB) for the open houses are now available.

These boards do not do a great job of showing the proposed connection with the subway at Yonge and Finch. The one cross-section drawing shows the LRT above the subway tracks with pedestrian walkways flanking each side of the subway tunnel. Stairs, escalators, and elevators will connect each end of each of the side platforms of the LRT with these walkways.

 What is not shown is that the Finch Subway station is located north of Finch. This means that the pedestrian tunnels head north on each side of the subway tunnel until they are under the mezzanine of the station where stairs, escalators, and elevators take people up to that level where they can reach the stairs, escalators, and elevators to the centre platform of the subway. In other words, there will be three level changes to transfer from LRT to subway. Unfortunately, there is really no way to reduce this without either going with an on-street platform that is on Yonge above the subway station, or having a deep (and expensive) LRT station that is below the subway tracks. My concern is that given the TTC’s track record on maintaining its current lift infrastructure, the chances of a transfer that requires three sets of hardware having one of those out of service becomes remarkably significant.

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Sorry I missed posting this earlier, but the next round of open houses are being held for the Etobicoke-Finch West LRT. The first was held last night (December 1) but here are the upcoming open houses:

All will be held from 6:30 pm to 9:00 pm. The dates and locations are as  follows:

• Thursday December 3 at Julius Banquet Centre - 2201 Finch Avenue West (at Arrow Road)
• Monday December 7 at Charles H Best MS (cafeteria) - 285 Wilmington Avenue
• Wednesday December 9 at Elmbank JMA - 10 Pittsboro Drive (east of Martingrove)

 I will add display panels once they become available.

Two first-round open houses for the EA on the Scarborough-Malvern LRT will be held on July 23 (Scarborough Village Recreation Centre, 3600 Kingston Road at Markham Road) and on July 24 (University of Toronto Scarborough, Science Wing Meeting Place, 1265 Military Trail).

Three first-round open houses for the Etobicoke-Finch West LRTwill be held on July 29 (6:30pm - 9:00pm, North York Memorial Community Hall, 5110 Yonge Street), on August 6 (6:30pm to 9:00pm, Jane-Finch Mall, 1911 Finch Avenue West), and on August 7 (6:30pm to 9:00pm, Elmbank Community Centre, 10 Rampart Rd, off Martingrove Rd, south of Finch Ave).