City braces for (more) traffic chaos
Metrolinx emerges as byelection issue with several key downtown streets set to close for years
A busy downtown intersection is closing Monday for nearly half a decade as construction on Toronto’s newest subway line begins in earnest.
Starting May 1, Queen Street between Bay and Victoria Streets will be shut to cars for four and a half years in what will be one of the biggest disruption the city will face in the construction of the Ontario Line subway. Work on the line began last March, but will heat up this summer with the Queen Street closure and other projects.
The 15.6-km, 15-stop subway line — which will run from Exhibition Place through downtown to the Ontario Science Centre — promises to change how people move around the city, making transit more accessible for hundreds of thousands of people and providing much-needed relief to the TTC’s busy Line 1. But building a subway line through Canada’s densest city will come with significant collateral damage, in the form of appropriated homes, felled trees, ruined businesses and headaches from years of heavy drilling.
Even more, the provincial transit agency charged with building the Ontario Line, Metrolinx, is deeply distrusted by many Torontonians, for both its cosy relationship with Premier Doug Ford’s government and its apparent fumbling of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, which is years delayed with no end in sight. Meanwhile, residents from Thorncliffe to Riverside have criticized the transit agency for bulldozing forward with its construction plans without adequately consulting residents at the heart of them.
Metrolinx has already emerged as a key issue in the mayoral byelection, with city councillor and mayoral candidate Brad Bradford calling on the province Friday to fire Metrolinx CEO Phil Verster, while Anthony Furey announced plans to bring legal action against the transit agency for the LRT debacle.
When the Ontario Line is ready, which the government says will be in 2031, Toronto will be a more sustainable, livable and equitable city. But getting there won’t be easy.
“We’re doing everything we can to try to mitigate these closures,” said Roger Browne, the city’s director of traffic management. “But the reality is, it is going to be challenging.”
Browne advised planning trips downtown ahead of time and using other modes of transport whenever possible — walking, biking or taking public transit.
A city report from 2021 found that the construction of the Ontario Line’s six new downtown subway stations, combined with other cityled construction, could add an extra 30 minutes to a drive across downtown.
To accommodate the closure, the Queen streetcar, one of the city’s busiest routes, will be diverted north to Dundas Street for the next 10 months, until streetcar tracks are restored on Adelaide Street, at which point the Queen car will divert along that street as well as Richmond Street. Shuttle buses will also run in the meantime.
To keep traffic moving amid closures, Browne said the city is establishing protected routes around Toronto.
For example, to enable diverted Queen traffic to flow along Dundas Street, the city is banning nonemergency construction on that street and limiting Café TO applications. The city is also modifying traffic lights on the surrounding parallel streets to enable east-west traffic to move more quickly, as well as implementing AI-powered traffic signals at some downtown intersections, which adjust timing based on traffic flow. Traffic agents will be posted at key intersections to help with diversions.
It’s “all hands on deck,” Browne said.
But there will be little reprieve for businesses in the line of fire.
“This is pushing small businesses like us towards bankruptcy,” said Salim Merchant, who is the leaseholder for the convenience store INS Market franchise at Queen and Yonge Streets.
“I took this store in 2019 November to get some extra bread and butter for me and my family,” Merchant said. “After four months of getting the store, there was the hard hit of COVID for three years. And now for five years, the construction.”
He said he understands Toronto wanting to improve public transit, but lamented that downtown businesses have still not had time to recover from the pandemic. Merchant’s lease runs out in 2027, the year the Queen closure is expected to end. But he’s not confident his business will make it until then.
“It’s not going to work out. It’s only pushing me towards a financial crisis.”
In a statement, Metrolinx said “communities will continue to be informed and we will communicate confirmed construction as early as possible using a multi-channel approach and by co-ordinating all our plans with the City of Toronto and the TTC. We set up construction liaison committees, hold regular open houses and provide 24/7 call centre support across the route of the project to address questions, gather feedback, and provide timely and critical updates.”
While much of the disruption is concentrated downtown, residents across the city will feel the effects of upcoming construction, which will destroy trees, homes, businesses and landmarks.
Backlash to Metrolinx’s plans in the eastern and northern sections of the line, where the train will run above ground for stretches, has been brewing for years. Thorncliffe residents were “gutted” when Metrolinx announced in 2021 it planned to build a massive maintenance and storage facility in the neighbourhood, displacing a mosque and dozens of local businesses. Riverside-based group Save Jimmie Simpson has fought to bury the subway to preserve the area’s parks. Near the future Pape Station, parents of children at Pape Avenue Junior Public School have criticized Metrolinx for failing to present a detailed plan for how they will protect students from disruptive construction.
Metrolinx confirmed that “construction on early upgrades to prepare for major work on the Ontario Line is already underway at Exhibition Station, the sites of the future Queen, Corktown, Osgoode and Moss Park stations, the Don Yard, in the Lakeshore East rail corridor east of the Don River, and in the area of the future tunnel portal near Pape Avenue and Gerrard Street”
“Work will start this summer on King-Bathurst and Queen-Spadina stations,” the agency added, which will require further street closures through the end of the decade.
There will also be some disruptions due to the construction of bridges along the joint corridor with GO transit in the eastern side of the city’s core. Beginning this summer through early 2025, there will be intermittent sidewalk and lane closures on Queen Street East, east of Boulton Avenue where a bridge is being built. During that time, traffic will also be restricted on Dundas Street East east of West Avenue, and bike lanes will be closed for around nine months. Bike lanes will also be closed on nearby Logan Avenue for two months sometime between early 2024 and spring 2025. Both Queen Street East and Dundas Street East, including sidewalks, will be fully closed on select weekends, according to Metrolinx’s website.
There are also several other Ontario Line-related closures in the downtown.
As of Dec. 5, southbound traffic on University Avenue between Armoury Street and Queen Street has been reduced to one lane, set to last until mid 2023. While pedestrian access will be maintained, there may be some minor sidewalk impacts from the construction, and cyclists and cars will have to use the same lane.
Northbound lane closures will also occur at some point this year, according to Metrolinx’s website. James Street has also been closed to cars since mid-December, and will remain so until Queen Station is complete in November 2027.
According to a report to Toronto’s executive committee this Tuesday, the construction of the two bridges that will carry the subway across the Don Valley Parkway — the Ontario Line Don Valley Crossing and Lower Don Bridge — will require multiple temporary lane closures on the DVP, Gardiner Expressway and the Don Roadway between 2023 and 2028.
Down the line, Toronto will see more construction in the form of housing hubs, called transit-oriented communities (TOC)s, which are planned around Ontario Line stops at Gerrard-Carlaw North, Corktown, Queen-Spadina, King-Bathurst, Exhibition and East Harbour.
They’re envisioned as mixed-use centres complete with residential office, retail and green space. There are some renderings available, but details are scarce.
Asked about start dates and scope, provincial Ministry of Infrastructure spokesperson Sofia Sousa-Dias said in an email that construction will start once each station has been completed.
“Therefore, timelines are still being determined for each site. Consultations with municipalities, private partners and local communities help to inform the density and heights of each TOC site.”
The official website for the Gerrard-Carlaw North hub says that about 1,080 new residential units are planned. According to developer Cadillac Fairview, the East Harbour site will include 10 million square feet of commercial development and 3.2 million square feet of residential development (more than 4,000 units, including affordable housing).
“In early 2024 we are expecting to break ground on preparatory infrastructure work for the site, which is a necessary first step ahead of commencing construction on the residential and commercial buildings,” reads an emailed statement from the company.
“Pending further municipal approvals and market conditions, we hope to break ground on our first building in late 2024.”
We’re doing everything we can to try to mitigate these closures. But the reality is, it is going to be challenging.”
ROGER BROWNE CITY DIRECTOR OF TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT
While much of the disruption is concentrated downtown, residents across the city will feel the effects of upcoming construction, which will destroy trees, homes, businesses and landmarks