That's hardly true. It's a tight fit, but it's really just a glorified gazebo obstructing the route. The TTC claimed the cost of the underground alignment at close to a billion dollars. For that, you could buy and demolish the entire condo about a hundred times over, not that it would even be necessary.
Is TTC and the City in the position to fight a major law suite to demolish that condo to extend the line west along the rail corridor?
Tunneling is well under billion and more like $600-$700 m range.
Time to get into the precast tunneling business.
It would be cheaper than doing a cut and build in place as being well faster to build the extension.
You build the precast sections first, start digging, drop sections in, post tension, back fill in matter of a week/2 per per section subject to relocation of utilities.
At the same time work is taking place placing the precast tunnel, digging is taking place for the next section or 2. If done between May-October, rain is the only weather that will effect construction work for the tunnel. The new terminal would be well under way.
Once the first 1/4 is done, track work and other wiring would start.
Dundas gets reduce to 1 lane each way during construction and love to see it reduce to 2 lanes after construction. Traffic folks will love this.
You build a casting plant on the Honeydale land and only come a short haul to move the section to site.
You could shift the main rail line south, but will have an impact on the container yard and lead tracks to it. Don't forget this is the junction for the Lakeshore main line for CP.
Lets tear down some of the business along the south side and build a new container yard and help redeveloped the industrial land at the same time.
Work, live and shop all in the same area. Sounds great.