From today's OL email newsletter.

Ontario Line​

August 12, 2022
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Thank you Riverside and Leslieville neighbours for attending the in-person Design Session
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Last week, Metrolinx held a design workshop for the joint corridor design competition – the first in person public event for the project in over two years! Residents had the opportunity to speak with the Metrolinx team to ask questions, provide input and ideas on design elements along the rail corridor for the Ontario Line future retaining walls, noise barriers, spaces under bridges, station plazas, lighting, murals and other landscape features.

All ideas and feedback residents shared at the design workshop and by completing the online survey will be provided to the professional design teams to help them better understand the community’s needs and desires before submitting their final design proposals.
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Ontario Line Community Notices​

 
A few screenshots of the new arch bridge (clear-spanning 120 metres) where the Ontario Line crosses the Don River.

OntarioLine-Don-bridge.jpg

OntarioLine-Don-bridge2.jpg

OntarioLine-Don-bridge3.jpg


Cut and cover tunnel heading west from the bridge.
OntariLine-cut-cover.jpg

Enabling Works Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJdKguLeTYo
 
Sorry but I'm gonna ask some basic questions that are probably somewhere in this thread.

When are they launching the TBMs, where will the TBMs launch shaft located, how many TBMs are needed, and are these single bore tunnels
 
Sorry but I'm gonna ask some basic questions that are probably somewhere in this thread.

When are they launching the TBMs, where will the TBMs launch shaft located, how many TBMs are needed, and are these single bore tunnels
from the garrison crossing and from corktown. thats why corktown has this huge space. half of it is used for the launch shaft.
the north section will launch from the nofrills at carlaw and garrard. as well as the "minton place portal"
i dont think they have publicized whether its single or double tbm, would be decided when the RFPs close probably
 
Another question of mine...

How is the connection at Pape going to work. If passengers don't find it to be a smooth connection will they actually use it to transfer and head downtown and be as a relief line as they intended?? I've seen y'all complain about the SRT connection at Kennedy and I myself didn't see that hardly as bad
 
Another question of mine...

How is the connection at Pape going to work. If passengers don't find it to be a smooth connection will they actually use it to transfer and head downtown and be as a relief line as they intended?? I've seen y'all complain about the SRT connection at Kennedy and I myself didn't see that hardly as bad
That transfer will be competing against Yonge/Bloor which isn't the easiest either. Pre-covid the trains were rammed at Bloor. I'd guess rider experience will be better from Pape even with an inconvenient transfer.
 
Another question of mine...

How is the connection at Pape going to work. If passengers don't find it to be a smooth connection will they actually use it to transfer and head downtown and be as a relief line as they intended?? I've seen y'all complain about the SRT connection at Kennedy and I myself didn't see that hardly as bad
We're going to have to see when the RFPs come out to see if they find a better way to do the transfers. As it stands however, I completely agree with you. The biggest issue with the Ontario Line is whilst transfers like those at Exhibition and East Harbour are great and especially for the latter are massive improvements of the DRL, the other transfer stations, whilst better than the DRL in some ways, still leave a lot to be desired.
 
That transfer will be competing against Yonge/Bloor which isn't the easiest either. Pre-covid the trains were rammed at Bloor. I'd guess rider experience will be better from Pape even with an inconvenient transfer.
There is a large project planned to expand Yonge-Bloor station and improve that transfer point, which won't happen soon, though the Ontario line isn't opening soon either, but I'm pretty sure Yonge-Bloor work will be accelerated since the province is desperate to extend the Yonge Line further north.
There's also the transfer at the other end to consider. It looks like exiting Queen Station on the Ontario Line will be quite a journey to the surface since it's basically four floors underground.
In general, I don't think any of this will be evident until it's built and we see riders actually using the pathways to figure it out. The models never get things 100% correct, there's always some oddities and outliers that change flows in unexpected ways.
 
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its been discussed before, but the transfer points at queen and university are going to be pretty far underground. like 5 sets of staircases to get to the surface.
We should probably be making a bigger deal about that as it is kind of important. It should not be any deeper than it absolutely needs to be; otherwise, it is just unnecessary waste of time for the every day users of this line and a waste of money for the people building it.
 
There is a large project planned to expand Yonge-Bloor station and improve that transfer point, which won't happen soon, though the Ontario line isn't opening soon either, but I'm pretty sure Yonge-Bloor work will be accelerated since the province is desperate to extend the Yonge Line further north.
There's also the transfer at the other end to consider. It looks like exiting Queen Station on the Ontario Line will be quite a journey to the surface since it's basically four floors underground.
In general, I don't think any of this will be evident until it's built and we see riders actually using the pathways to figure it out. The models never get things 100% correct, there's always some oddities and outliers that change flows in unexpected ways.
It is an issue, but worth considering the more comfortable and newer trains on the Ontario Line plus the faster trip to many destinations (i.e. east of Yonge) will be attractive.
its been discussed before, but the transfer points at queen and university are going to be pretty far underground. like 5 sets of staircases to get to the surface.
Should be tons of escalators.
 
The Ontario line will also be significantly faster than the legacy subway system. Pape to Queen is about 12 minutes of travel today not including transfer time, compared to probably ~9 minutes of travel time on the OL. Osgoode will be even more competitive, at 15 minutes today vs. ~10 with the OL.

That right there means being time competitive still allows for 3 extra minutes of accessing the station, which I doubt will be that large of a difference. Maybe a minute total of extra access time at Pape and Queen. Plus as a bonus you won't have to deal with the gongshow at Bloor-Yonge.
 
We should probably be making a bigger deal about that as it is kind of important. It should not be any deeper than it absolutely needs to be; otherwise, it is just unnecessary waste of time for the every day users of this line and a waste of money for the people building it.
The problem is, that for Queen and Osgoode anyway, due to the buildings, PATH tunnels, and other infrastructure around Queen in the area, this is probably how deep it needs to be without it costing an absolute fortune to build. Building it in a layer of rock as planned, also avoids having to deal with the complete engineering nightmare of underpinning the existing Queen station, because underpinning stations was a big part of what held up the Crosstown at Eglinton and Eglinton West for so long.

Ideally they'd look at better, faster ways of moving people within the station (high speed elevators, for example), which would allow them to build it at the current depth, while improving passenger experience. But sadly, this is metrolinx, so it'll be 5-6 escalators to get between platforms. But there are ways to make the current station depths work, if they would just make the effort/spend the money.
 

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