Fri Nov 16, 2012
Local News

Front Street at Union Station will be closed to traffic for most of 2013

With more street closures coming to the Union Station area as a result of construction, the daily gridlock won’t let up in 2013.

BY: Rob Duffy

Bad news, commuters. The daily gridlock plugging up the area around Union Station is going to get much worse before it gets better.

Multiple street closures were listed in a news release from the City today due to the ongoing construction at Union Station and the PATH network. The most notable closure will be the stretch of Front Street just east of York Street, which “will be closed in both directions from January to October 2013.” Motorists will be able to access the Fairmont Royal York by traveling westbound from Bay Street, then making a U-turn and heading back east.

As well, one block of York Street (between Front and Piper) will be closed both directions for the entirety of 2013. Pedestrian access to most streets will be maintained, the City says.

This is probably a good place to mention the multitude of Bixi stations across the downtown core.

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Chris

Funny end on the comment about Bixi in an article Union Station. The urban designer folks have banned bike parking from the vicinity of the station – too unsightly. Sure Union Station is an important transit hub – but you should only be able to park your bike or get your Bixi a couple of blocks away. First they make it hard to drive a car… then they make it harder ride a bike…
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4:49 pm on November 19, 2012

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Andrew

What is with the city (and by large extention the TTC) starting every major project at the same time? Between this, the erasing of bike lanes by the city, and the closure of large sections of Queens Quay and all of the streetcar tracks on Spadina, it sucks to be a commuter in any way even on foot. And we wonder why people keep having such adverse reactions to one another. The frustration everyone feels is borne of nothing but incompetence and the inability to see that doing ten huge things at once is the wrong way to do anything. It’s just annoying and sad. But, whatever, I’m sure once these all get done things will be nice again. Let’s just hope we don’t all go nuts by that point.
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1:08 pm on November 16, 2012

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Mike

I would rather they do all the construction at once and complete all necessary contruction than having it spread over a couple years… leading to a couple years of headaches.
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1:13 pm on November 16, 2012
Andrew

To some degree, I agree with Mike, but this is all too much in one specifically concentrated area and it all just piles up to an overwhelming degree. There is no TTC, bike, pedestrian or automotive way to get to Union Station that isn’t fraught with problems. It’s terrible planning all around. Sure, the subway is still there to ferry people there, but try taking a streetcar down there or navigating in a bike or car durning rush hour and it’s damn near impossible. You could always take the Spadina or Exhibition street cars in the past, but not anymore. Seriously, who honestly thought it was a good idea. I hate going down there at the moment. It’s all so unnecessarily messy.
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2:42 pm on November 16, 2012
Andrew

In other words, I would love to have a few smaller areas of construction troubles over a few years than the Don Ellis wasteland we have downtown at the moment. It has to be counterproductive to have everything going on at once. Whatever happened to focusing on doing one thing right at one time?
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2:45 pm on November 16, 2012