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With Eglinton & Leslie being reduced to two lanes for LRT construction it would be nice for traffic if Lawrence was continuous. It would also allow a continuous Lawrence East bus line. Although, the current route of Lawrence East benefits people on Eglinton between Leslie & Yonge since it adds a lot of frequency through Leaside.

Of course, it'll never happen.
 
Lawrence East would be an awesome corridor for LRT. Lots of redevelopment potential, and the ridership is high too.
 
The Bridle Path is strongly against making Lawrence continuous.

Likewise, Moore Park is strongly against making St. Clair join with O'Connor across the Don River.
 
St. Clair Avenue East. To somehow connect St. Clair Avenue West via O'Conner Drive to St. Clair Avenue East.

The trouble with extending St. Clair is that east of Mt. Pleasant it turns into a quiet little residential street for several blocks. There's no way that this street will be widened to arterial road standards. The yuppies here will go ballistic.

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With Eglinton & Leslie being reduced to two lanes for LRT construction it would be nice for traffic if Lawrence was continuous. It would also allow a continuous Lawrence East bus line. Although, the current route of Lawrence East benefits people on Eglinton between Leslie & Yonge since it adds a lot of frequency through Leaside.

Of course, it'll never happen.

Would it not have been easier just to keep Eglinton open to 4 lanes during construction?
 
The trouble with extending St. Clair is that east of Mt. Pleasant it turns into a quiet little residential street for several blocks. There's no way that this street will be widened to arterial road standards. The yuppies here will go ballistic.

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They could have done it in the 1950's. They would not be able to do it today.
 
Between Danforth and York Mills, there is Eglinton as a through route to Yonge from the East. These huge gaps, side-by-side. In these gaps: Thorncliffe Park, Flemingdon Park, and Don Mills. You can see the problem. Beyond that, there is Scarborough, disconnected from the rest of city, even before we consider a Sheppard LRT that won't go past Don Mills, or an RT that only goes to Kennedy.

South Mississauga is a similar situation, but it's only the wealthy neighbourhoods with high mobility cut off from the north. And most importantly they are not cut off from Toronto.

So I think Toronto needs to fix a disconnected road system that is isolating the east of the City, or at least compensate for it: e.g. underground Lawrence East LRT between Bayview and Leslie, DRL along Don Mills to Don Mills station, subway extensions of Sheppard and Danforth lines, and so on.
 
Between Danforth and York Mills, there is Eglinton as a through route to Yonge from the East. These huge gaps, side-by-side. In these gaps: Thorncliffe Park, Flemingdon Park, and Don Mills. You can see the problem. Beyond that, there is Scarborough, disconnected from the rest of city, even before we consider a Sheppard LRT that won't go past Don Mills, or an RT that only goes to Kennedy.

South Mississauga is a similar situation, but it's only the wealthy neighbourhoods with high mobility cut off from the north. And most importantly they are not cut off from Toronto.

So I think Toronto needs to fix a disconnected road system that is isolating the east of the City, or at least compensate for it: e.g. underground Lawrence East LRT between Bayview and Leslie, DRL along Don Mills to Don Mills station, subway extensions of Sheppard and Danforth lines, and so on.

As someone who lived in Don Mills & Victoria Village for many years and now lives in East York, the lack of single through arterial roads is really not that big of a deal. For the most part there are relatively easy ways to get where you need to go. For example, there are no major destinations around Yonge & Lawrence so most of the time you will be driving north or south on relatively fast arterial roads (such as Leslie) anyway, and there are enough minor east-west through routes (such as Lawrence/Bridle Path/Post Rd, O'Connor/Donlands/Millwood/Davisville, or Mortimer/Pottery/Bayview) that it is relatively easy to get from point A to point B even if there is no obvious route to your destination.

Transit is a totally different situation, but that's mostly just because it can be a very long bus ride to get to the subway. The Eglinton LRT will help immensely with this as most destinations relevant to this discussion are on Eglinton or Yonge anyway, and then DRL to Eglinton (or even further north) would be huge for this part of the city and points north and east.

I still think it was a mistake to cancel the Front Street Extension - not to feed the downtown core directly, but to make it easier to get from the Gardiner to and from Liberty Village, King West and Fort York. As it is now someone coming from the west has to choose between driving along King from Jameson (slow), driving on Lakeshore from Jameson (slow) or taking the Spadina exist and doubling back (really slow).
 
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I've been curious about the possibility of a Lawrence LRT for a while. Is it possible to tunnel it under the Bridle Path for a continuous line?
 
I've been curious about the possibility of a Lawrence LRT for a while. Is it possible to tunnel it under the Bridle Path for a continuous line?

Just looking at google maps.. you'd probably have to widen Lawrence between Leslie and Bayview, and do a small tunnel or clear the trees or something at Bayview to connect it.

Of course, the Bridle Path neighbourhood would be completely against it, I'd guess they live there because they want to be isolated away from everyone and don't want anything that would bring more people or activity to their area.

Other parts of Lawrence are narrow as well, like just west of Yonge, with buildings that prevent widening.
 
I've been curious about the possibility of a Lawrence LRT for a while. Is it possible to tunnel it under the Bridle Path for a continuous line?

I think a Lawrence LRT would more likely go to Don Mills on the Crosstown line.

An ideal Lawrence East route would be from a station at Morningside (linking with the Malvern LRT) with stops at Galloway, Orton Park, Scarborough Golf Club, Markham (with a terminal allowing a branch up Markham to Ellesmere and Centennial). From there we would have stops at Bellamy, McCowan, Brimley, Midland and whatever happens to Lawrence LRT station would be an asset to the area. A station at Kennedy and Lawrence would link to a branch to Kennedy station on Crosstown. After that the main stops would be at Birchmount, Warden, Pharmacy, Vic Park (with another branch heading south on Vic Park to Crosstown and the subway station on Danforth. A stop at Railside, one at Donway and then build a terminal at the Shops At Don Mills. Route the Branch both up Don Mills to the Sheppard Line and south to the Crosstown station.
 
They could have done it in the 1950's. They would not be able to do it today.

What they did back then is remarkable but in a negative way. In the 1950s, they took beautiful residential streets, cut down all the mature trees and widened the road to 4 lanes for a standard arterial. They typically didn't bother to widen the sidewalks, plant new trees or even bury overhead wires. They made big changes without investing anything in the public realm. Neighbourhoods often declined afterward.

We could still do things boldly like in the 1950s to our benefit, but this time the changes should include ambitious public realm improvements to preserve and build the value of established neighbourhoods rather than to cut it.
 

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