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O-Train East-West Line 1 & Line 3

Photos taken April 17, 2024 West end of New Orchard Station
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Bay Ward Presentation, which includes full Richmond Road complete street and Byron Linear Park overview.

 
Okay so when I first looked at those screenshots I was a bit disappointed because it seems silly to have two roads that both have bidirectional vehicle lanes on both sides of the park. I admittedly haven't followed this project super closely. But before just complaining, I figured I should watch the presentation.

Positives
- Lots of slip lanes are being removed.
- Vehicle connections between Byron and Richmond are being removed!
- The Richmond/New Orchard and Richmond/Cleary intersections will be raised and will be pavers (I'm guessing similar to Queen St downtown). This is great and will really slow down vehicles moving along Richmond
- Raised pedestrian crossings are being added between intersections. This will reduce the distance people need to walk to cross the street and will help slow down vehicles!
- Byron no longer connects to Woodroofe!

Negatives
- There is a lot going on at Woodroofe and Richmond. My preference is for intersections to be as foolproof as possible.

Overall, could this be better? Yes. Is it going to be a massive improvement and generally a good city-building project? Also yes.
 
It's unfortunately not possible to remove one or the other. Both streets have very different function, with Byron being a local street providing access to driveways and parking lots, along with other local streets, while Richmond acts as a crosstown street and main street (and not a stroad, which is nice). You see a lot of this in Europe, three roads with trees in between, with the centre road being an artery and the two streets on the periphery acting as slow local streets. I think this guy is an example: https://www.google.com/maps/place/A...2.3675734!4d4.9041389!16zL20vMGszcA?entry=ttu

The Byron/Richmond rebuild is quite good, but for sure it's not perfect, Woodroofe being one of the weaker points. Still a major improvement over what we had since the streetcars were taken out.
 
It's unfortunately not possible to remove one or the other. Both streets have very different function, with Byron being a local street providing access to driveways and parking lots, along with other local streets, while Richmond acts as a crosstown street and main street (and not a stroad, which is nice). You see a lot of this in Europe, three roads with trees in between, with the centre road being an artery and the two streets on the periphery acting as slow local streets. I think this guy is an example: https://www.google.com/maps/place/A...2.3675734!4d4.9041389!16zL20vMGszcA?entry=ttu

The Byron/Richmond rebuild is quite good, but for sure it's not perfect, Woodroofe being one of the weaker points. Still a major improvement over what we had since the streetcars were taken out.
I tend to agree. I think they've actually done a quite good job overall with what they had to work with. I think this is going to be an improvement for our city.
 
Not gonna lie, it's incredibly disappointing to see just one track bed laid at this stage.
Keep in mind this was the last stretch of the Transitway to close (June 2022). They wanted to keep it open as long as possible. After it closed, they had to demolish the embankment that connected the bus loop with Scott (replaced with the new Goldenrod Bridge), they had to demolish Westboro Station. They had to dig out the trench for Kitchi Sibi Station.
 
Pimisi Station from Phase 1. I find the thoughtful connections to NCC path and Booth Bridge makes this one of the more unusual stations. Nice views of trains arriving through big glass windows from the plaza outside.

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Pimisi is the gold standard of the Line 1 stations. Very interesting design, great layout, fantastic public art that ties in well with the theme and the station itself. Not an after thought like many others. Based on Bluesfest last year, looks like it can handle crowds very well (unlike OPS' claim).
 
Any chance that big lot & parking can get redeveloped with added density in the near future?
 

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