Councillor says city should expand Union Station tunnel

A TTC board member is warning that the city is at risk of “cheaping out” on a key waterfront transit connection, as it mulls proposals to scrap streetcar service to Union Station in favour of less costly alternatives.

At a public meeting about waterfront transit plans on Monday night, the city unveiled a set of three options to overhaul the tunnel that links the station and Queens Quay.

Streetcars running on the western waterfront currently operate in the 530-metre tunnel and terminate at Union. But with a new East Bayfront streetcar line planned, the existing underground infrastructure can’t handle the extra service.

The three options being proposed to link Union and Queens Quay are: expanding the tunnel to accommodate the additional streetcars; replacing the streetcar tracks with a below-ground pedestrian walkway; or, in what would be a first of its kind in Toronto, installing an underground cable car.

Expanding the tunnel and preserving the streetcar service would be the most expensive option — previous estimates indicate it would cost at least $270 million. It’s also the only one that would provide seamless transit access between the waterfront and Union. Under the other two proposals, streetcars would operate east and west along Queens Quay but not travel north to the station.

Councillor Joe Mihevc, who sits on the TTC board, argued the city would be foolish not to maintain the streetcar link.

He said it’s the only option that improves transit, while the other two are aimed at keeping costs low.

“This is not a project that we should frankly cheap out on,” he said, describing the other proposals as “second-rate.”

The high cost of expanding the tunnel is driven by the complex underground work it would require, including expanding the streetcar loop beneath Union Station to accommodate additional boarding platforms, and the creation of a second tunnel entrance on Queens Quay east of Yonge St.

“It is a lot of money but . . . it is worth every penny, considering what we’re building south of Front St.,” Mihevc said. “The congestion in that area will be unrelenting.”

The number of residents and jobs on Toronto’s waterfront is expected to grow by about 470,000 over the next 25 years. Planners predict that by 2041, there will be 10,000 people headed south from Union Station in the morning rush hour.

Nigel Tahair, a program manager for transportation planning at the city, said all three proposals meet the waterfront study’s threshold of accommodating at least 7,000 people per hour.

But he acknowledged that “the experience of using these three different systems will obviously be quite different.”

Under the pedestrian walkway option, it would take the average person at least six minutes to walk from Union to Queens Quay through the tunnel. A moving sidewalk of the type commonly seen in airports would speed up the trip, but there is only space in the eight-metre-wide tunnel for one of the devices.

That means the moving sidewalk would operate in one direction in the morning and then in the opposite direction in the afternoon. People not travelling the peak direction would be stuck in the slow lane, on a regular walkway beside the moving sidewalk.

Tahair said a moving sidewalk that only travels in one direction is “obviously a shortcoming,” but the proposal does have the potential to offer connections to the PATH network at midpoints between Union and Queens Quay.

“We need transit service, but we also need really good, high-quality pedestrian links in the network. They’re complementary,” he said.

The underground funicular, the most unorthodox of the proposals, would operate on a cable-pulled system within the existing streetcar tunnel. The driverless cars would travel at 36 km/h, operate at oneminute intervals and have a peak capacity of 8,250 people in each direction per hour.

“It is a lot of money but . . . it is worth every penny, considering what we’re building south of Front St.” COUNCILLOR JOE MIHEVC

Tahair said the main drawback would be that people trying to switch between train service at Union and the streetcar line on Queens Quay would have to make two transfers.

“People generally don’t like transfers, so that’s a negative experience,” he said.

The city planning department, Waterfront Toronto, and the TTC are working together on the waterfront transit study. According to Mihevc, there “is a vigorous debate” among them on which option is best.

TTC spokesperson Brad Ross declined to comment on which one the transit agency favours, saying it will wait until city staff release their final recommendations.

A spokesperson for Mayor John Tory also said it was too early to weigh in.

A report detailing all three options is expected to go before Tory’s executive committee in October. Tahair said he hoped the city, Waterfront Toronto and the TTC will select a preferred option within months.