04-23-2018, 06:54 AM
(04-23-2018, 01:16 AM)tomh009 Wrote:(04-22-2018, 07:57 PM)welltoldtales Wrote: High Speed rail requires grade separation, that includes Duke. Ahrens will not re-open as far as I know. Weber and King are grade separated but neither are particularly pleasant.
As a pedestrian, I don't really feel that King St or Weber St are particularly unpleasant: it's maybe 20-30m worth of underpass, and Weber St even has some artwork in that span. For me, at least, it's more pleasant going under the tracks on Weber than crossing Victoria St 100m further east.
Ideally I think that it would be nice to have a pedestrian bridge at Waterloo St and a pedestrian/bicycle underpass at Duke St, or vice versa. And grade separation at Lancaster.
I was actually impressed when I saw the grade separations to observe how open the sidewalks feel. In particular, the sidewalks don’t go down and then up; they just go up (or maybe they go down a little bit, but hardly any). So they don’t feel like closed-in spaces. The existing terrain is fortunate — to go under the tracks all you need to do is go up the hill later than you would walking on the original surface.
This is also why I think Waterloo St. should be a tunnel. To do this, you start at ground level at Victoria St., then stay on the level until you are on the other side of the tracks. Then up one flight of stairs to ground level. By contrast a bridge would be up two floors or maybe even more for clearance, across the tracks, and back down the other side. Hardly convenient, especially for bicycles and those who need elevators. In addition, it’s not just a tunnel; it’s part of the transit hub. So access to all platforms is needed and the tunnel could double as platform access. I think the push for a bridge is in part just a knee-jerk reaction to “dangerous tunnels” which doesn’t make sense in this context. This particular tunnel would probably feel about as unwelcoming as the King St. underpass, i.e., not very much at all.