Jonny5
Senior Member
What I have never known (and is not explained in that video) is how far east/west of Queen and Yonge did they actually build that streetcar tunnel (if at all) and while I "get" that the decision at the time was to build B-D rather than continue with Queen why at no time since has someone said..."mmm, wonder if we should go back now an revisit that idea of running part of the Queen streetcar line under ground".
Cost is likely prohibitive but if, say, either/or/both of queen car or king car ran undgerground from, say, Jarvis to Bathurst it sure would move more people more efficiently than they do now.
I saw inside it once when the door was open in the tunnel and some people were working inside. It's not very large. What is left of it is about the length and height of the Spadina streetcar platform, but only about two metres wide. If anything, it's going to be an annoyance, not useful for putting anything underground on Queen. I imagine utility relocation and dealing with the PATH and garage entrances under Queen would be a nightmare. There's probably a huge amount of old and poorly documented infrastructure to move too. Then there's the problem of where to put the portals to get underground. The original plan was to literally demolish everything on the north side of Queen like they did for the B-D line.
In recent times the "wonder if we should go back now an revisit that idea" question is easy. We need to stop forgetting TTC ridership, especially downtown, collapsed in the early 90s and then service was cut drastically. There was a prolonged recession, something we are, frankly, overdue for again. Even at slashed service levels most rush hour routes were dead quiet. It didn't recover until around 2005. You think Rob Ford was bad? When Ontario unilaterally cut the subsidy to the TTC they in turn cut service by 1/3 to make budget. Some routes were simply removed entirely. This is something that can happen again someday. Some people don't seem to even be aware of times when First Canadian Place sat half empty, owners bankrupt, lights shut off at night. It wasn't that long ago....
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