Kraus Development (525-565 Conestogo Road) | 3-35 fl | Proposed

[ac3r]

Also I would just point out that any talk of tunnelling under the LRT facility is completely missing the point of what Dan is suggesting. As I said, I’m skeptical of tunnelling vs. bridging, even though he raises some interesting points, but a quick look at the map will instantly reveal that he cannot reasonably be interpreted to be proposing to tunnel under the LRT facility. The tunnel would be around 70m at most and due to the elevation of the highway vs. surrounding land the exit ramps at either end would be relatively short compared to what would be required for a bridge.

I'm struggling to figure out where he imagines a tunnel to go, though. I'll refer to the image below.

Everything within the yellow border is owned by the ROW for the ION facility. The forested area is likely for future expansion as we get more trains/LRT lines and need extra space since this is all fenced in right now and highly secured. They're not going to allow a tunnel to come out on this property. Everything within the red belongs to the MTO and there is zero chance they'd allow a pedestrian walkway within that area or anywhere near 4 lanes of expressway - not to mention, there are two marshy ditches running along both sides, so they'd have to figure out how to deal with the water. So...where would this tunnel supposed to really go? Real life isn't SimCity where you can just build whatever you want, wherever you want. There are limitations of all sorts and I have no doubt the developer conceded that a bridge is the simplest and most ideal way to provide the residents here access to the LRT, lest they provided them with nothing at all.

I'm glad they've proposed a tunnel, it's sensible. But you have to be realistic when you're developing something. It's easy to fantasize about all sorts of things but when you actually work in this sort of field, you have to deal with a heck of a lot of limitations and try your best to make the most ideal thing you can within those confines.