Item - 2022.EX31.13

The Executive Committee deferred consideration of Item EX31.13 to the May 4, 2022 meeting of Executive Committee.

The purpose of this report is to request City Council approval for the removal of the Harbour Lead Line and Keating Rail Yard in the Port Lands. As shown in Attachment 1, the Harbour Lead Line runs southeast from Metrolinx's Wilson Yard and over the Don River; it then runs east along Lake Shore Boulevard East, south along Leslie Street and west on Unwin Avenue; in sum, it connects the Port Lands to the Union Station Rail Corridor. The Keating Rail Yard is located on the north side of Lake Shore Boulevard East, east of the Don Roadway.

As this report describes in further detail below, removing the Harbour Lead Line would produce a number of benefits for the City and its partners. In addition to both capital and operational cost savings, immediate cycling and Pedestrian safety and public realm improvements could be obtained within the Lake Shore Boulevard East corridor between the Don Roadway and Carlaw Avenue. Waterfront Toronto is currently overseeing the implementation of the Lake Shore Boulevard East Bridge and Public Realm project within this section, and, provided that Council approves the recommendations below, there is a time-limited opportunity to modify Waterfront Toronto's proposed designs to reallocate space made available by removing the Harbour Lead Line to implement cycling and pedestrian safety, and public realm design enhancements.

Over the past 10 to 15 years, the main user of the Harbour Lead Line has been Toronto Water, with deliveries to the Ashbridges Bay Treatment Plant. The last shipment to PortsToronto's 8 Unwin Avenue facility was in 2010. The last shipment to the CanRoof facility at 560 Commissioners Street was in 2014. In 2018, a portion of the Harbour Lead Line along Leslie Street was removed to facilitate the sale of 675 Commissioners Street (at Leslie Street) to Canada Post, effectively shutting down the line. Prior to this shutdown, overall rail volumes saw a general decline from a monthly volume of 1,100 cars per month in 1985, to less than 200 per month in the late 1990s, to only 13 cars per month in the 2010s (three cars ran at night once weekly for Toronto Water).

Within this context, City and CreateTO staff, analyzed the costs and benefits of the removal versus reinstatement of the Harbour Lead Line. Apart from the line's declining use and 2018 shutdown, staff are of the view that there are a number of reasons for recommending the removal of the Harbour Lead Line and Keating Rail Yard:

- The benefits of reinstatement do not justify the associated capital, operational, and maintenance costs needed to bring the rail spur to contemporary industrial standards; and

- The typical port operations and current and emerging industrial/commercial activities within the Port Lands primarily depend on efficient truck and marine access, as opposed to rail service, to service local supply chains. Although the Port handled about 2.2 million tonnes of cargo in 2021 the vast majority of material was in the form of bulk goods such as salt, sugar, aggregate and construction steel, the vast majority of which are intended for immediate local use and as such are best transported by truck. 

Furthermore, the removal of the Harbour Lead Line and Keating Rail Yard would generate a variety of potential benefits to the City, its waterfront partners and the public, including:

- As noted above, the removal would benefit future redevelopment projects in the Port Lands and enable several roadway, public realm, pedestrian and cyclist safety improvement opportunities along Lake Shore Boulevard East, the Don Roadway, and the Broadview Avenue extension, among others; and

- The removal would result in significant capital and future operating cost savings for the City, CreateTO and PortsToronto. Consultants retained by the City estimated that the cost of reinstating the Harbour Lead Line to operational use to be approximately $50 million. In addition to reconstructing and lengthening the rail bridge over the Don River, these costs would include reconstructing the entire line and signals to reflect contemporary rail operational/regulatory requirements and a new modernized rail yard.

The City completed a study related to rail access, referred to as the Toronto Port Lands – Rail Access Assessment Review. The study undertaken in response to the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal settlement requirement for Official Plan Amendment 387, concluded the costs of retaining and modernizing the Harbour Lead Line and Keating Rail Yard far exceeded the benefits. The study included consultation with Port Area businesses/industries. Given the local nature of the shipping activity that occurs in the Port Lands, long distance rail service is not considered optimal for present and future distribution needs. Transportation Services is also advancing the development of a Port Lands-wide Truck Access Management Strategy intended to identify the recommended approach for ensuring continued truck access for goods movement, including identifying reliable and redundant truck routes in and out of the Port Lands. The Strategy is being advanced in accordance with the September 2020 executed Goods Movement Minutes of Settlement from the Port Lands Phase 1 hearing and is anticipated to be completed by the end of this year. The Strategy will be used to inform completion of further Environmental Assessments and detailed design exercises.

Following the Harbour Lead Line's operational suspension in March 2018, Toronto Water eliminated rail deliveries to the Ashbridges Bay Treatment Plant and instituted deliveries by truck. As a result, operations at the Ashbridges Bay Treatment Plant no longer rely on deliveries by rail.

In November 2021, Metrolinx signaled their intent to proceed with Wilson Yard Expansion project but has recently deferred implementing the project until further notice. As planned, the scope of the project includes the decommissioning and removal of the Metrolinx owned portion of the Harbour Lead Line. To date, Metrolinx has not shared timelines associated with removal of the Harbour Lead Line with the City. As seen in Attachment 2, the removal of this 750 metre portion of the line would effectively sever the Harbour Lead Line's only practical connection to the Union Station Rail Corridor.

PortsToronto has confirmed that the competitive advantage of the Port of Toronto does not depend on rail access. PortsToronto relies on truck and marine access, and the Port’s proximity to downtown Toronto, which enables the efficient servicing of local supply chains. Noting the significant capital expenditures that would be required to restore the Harbour Lead Line to operational status, as well as ongoing operational costs, PortsToronto has indicated that there is no business case for the line and it is of the view that public funds would be better spent on improvements to the Port Lands transportation network. These improvements, including the reconstruction and re-alignment of Unwin Avenue from Leslie St. to Cherry Street, including the replacement of the existing single lane Bailey Bridge, have also been identified by the City as important capital investments in both the Port Lands Planning Framework and Port Lands and South of Eastern Transportation and Servicing Masterplan. One key improvement, the full restoration of the Bascule Bridge approach and bridge spans over the Ship Channel, will be partially funded by the City and is underway. Discussions regarding the other identified capital improvements, described above and in the Comments section below, are ongoing between the City and PortsToronto.    

Moving forward, City and CreateTO staff will develop an implementation plan for removing the Harbour Lead Line and Keating Rail Yard, and study the implications and opportunities resulting from their removal. Given the potential heritage significance of the Harbour Lead Line to the legacy of the Port Lands and its cultural heritage landscape, City staff will investigate cost-effective measures for commemorating and/or conserving elements of the Harbour Lead Line and Keating Rail Yard in consultation with Heritage Planning staff, integrated with current public realm projects along Lake Shore Boulevard East being advanced by the City working with Waterfront Toronto.