Changes only temporary for Martin Goodman Trail

Due to construction

By George Hume –

Waterfront Toronto convened a meeting on Aug. 30 for stakeholders along the Central Waterfront and East Bayfront from Parliament to York streets to review the construction schedule for the Martin Goodman Trail.

The trail will be rebuilt in a temporary fashion between now and March 31, 2013. The final trail in this section will be built as part of the construction of whatever transit system for Queen’s Quay East is finally implemented.  This may be five years or more in the future.

The bicycle lanes at Parliament and Lakeshore are to be rejigged to “try” to get westbound cyclists on the trail to switch from the south side of Queen’s Quay to the north. They will be “forced” back to the south side at Jarvis, onto a two-way trail to join the permanent trail being built from Harbourfront to the Music Garden.

Eastbound cyclists will continue on the south side to Parliament where the two-way trail resumes. This separation is to facilitate TTC bus movements into the George Brown building on the waterfront at Sherbourne.

Traffic signals at Sherbourne and Queen’s Quay will be one of the first parts of the project to be implemented.

There will be construction on the south side of Queen’s Quay at Jarvis until the end of March as the dock wall at Redpath Sugar is rebuilt. The trail work in other areas, especially the bike lanes, is hoped to be complete before the asphalt suppliers shut down for the winter in late November.

The streetcar rails stacked on the north side of Queen’s Quay near the LCBO are intended for the revised Queen’s Quay West transit layout that has already started construction.  The rails are not likely to be needed for another year, but TTC got a deal on preparing them along with other projects where rails are needed earlier.

There will be lane reductions and elimination of bike lanes at various times during the construction. At the meeting, cycling advocates suggested that the lane reductions for cars during the day be maintained during evenings and weekends so that the safer parts of the construction areas could be used by cyclists during those hours. This proposal is being considered.

Construction hours will be 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. from Monday to Friday. Construction updates will be issued each Monday. The stakeholder group will not have any scheduled meetings due to the short-term nature of the work.

To report problems during construction, contact Waterfront Toronto at info@waterfrontoronto.ca or call (416) 214-1344.  For emergency repairs, call Robert Pasut at Eastern Construction at (416) 505-3073.