The Monde condominium will be an impressive addition to Toronto’s waterfront by the time its final girder is swung into place.

Renderings for the soaring 44-storey tower highlight its bold, balcony-studded design, its verdant rooftop gardens and glittering swimming pool, and down below, its proximity to a TTC light rail line running along Queens Quay East.

The condo is on track to be completed by 2019. But the LRT line? It doesn’t exist yet, and when or how it will get built is anybody’s guess.

Rapid growth is coming to the eastern harbour, effectively creating entire new neighbourhoods out of former industrial land. But plans for the public transit needed to serve that development have fallen behind. It’s been more than a decade since city planners first recognized the need for an East Bayfront LRT line on Queens Quay, but the project has stalled due to a lack of funding and piecemeal transportation planning.

“The situation is terrible. We’ve been waiting for this LRT, and we’re still waiting,” said Sam Crignano, president of Cityzen, a developer that’s building three projects along the eastern waterfront.

For now the TTC serves the area with two bus lines, and will add a third this summer. But Crignano says that won’t be enough to serve the coming influx of new residents and employees.

“It’s ridiculous that we’re basically an extension of downtown Toronto, and we have to rely on bus service,” he said.

“Our concern is, get this going now,” said Niall Haggart, executive vice-president of the Daniels Corp., which has already broken ground on a 1.3-million-square-foot, mixed-used building on the former site of the Guvernment nightclub. The $700-million development will add about 7,300 people to the area during the day and 2,500 at night.

The LRT line “absolutely needs to be a major priority for the city, given that the city has directed a phenomenal amount of growth (into this area) and done a terrific job,” he said.

The development on the eastern harbour is the result of concerted efforts by Waterfront Toronto — an agency founded in 2001 by the provincial, federal, and city governments — to convert the 55-acre area from brownfield lots into a vibrant commercial and residential hub.

The agency is succeeding. Already George Brown College and Corus Entertainment have moved into the area, bringing with them almost 4,000 students and more than 1,100 employees. Waterfront Toronto anticipates that over the next decade 6,000 new residential units and 3 million square feet of commercial space will occupy the land.

Pam McConnell (Ward 28, Toronto Centre – Rosedale) said the success of the redevelopment is “predicated on us being able to move people down along the waterfront.”

“We can’t wait until everybody is there, or we will have a disaster on our hands,” she said, adding that building the LRT line “is what we committed to with the developers when we encouraged them to build out.”

McConnell said the city can’t afford to repeat the mistakes made with Liberty Village, the west end enclave where booming growth hasn’t been matched by new transit service, leading to severe overcrowding on the King streetcar line.

“I think that if this city is going to continue to develop at the rapid pace that it’s developing, we have to be ahead of the curve on the transportation planning … not behind it,” McConnell said.

In an emailed statement, the president and CEO of Waterfront Toronto, Will Fleissig, said he understands the urgency.

“Readily accessible transit is essential to developing sustainable communities and supports commercial development in burgeoning neighbourhoods like the East Bayfront. We are working with our government partners to determine the best way to deliver transit across the waterfront,” he said.

Although Toronto has a long list of proposed transit lines languishing on the drawing board, in some ways the East Bayfront LRT should be easier to build than most. In 2010 Waterfront Toronto completed an environmental assessment for the line, a necessary step for building any transit projects in the province and one that makes the LRT “shovel-ready.”

The design set out in the assessment called for a streetcar line running underground from Union Station to Queens Quay, where it would surface onto a dedicated right-of-way east of Bay St. and continue about 1.6 km to Parliament St. A subsequent phase of the project could extend into the Port Lands via Cherry St.

The estimated cost of the first phase is $520 million, more than half of which would go toward creating a second entrance to the tunnel to Union Station from Queens Quay that currently serves the 509 and 510 streetcars operating west of Bay St., and for building a new underground boarding platform at Union.

Although funding hasn’t been secured for that plan, last fall hope was rekindled that some incarnation of the East Bayfront LRT will go ahead, although it could be scaled back.

In November,council approved a city report that said funding for waterfront transit had been difficult to secure because of “ad hoc and incremental” planning. Councillors directed city staff to “reset” the entire process.

City staff have been re-examining the line and will unveil reworked designs for the LRT at the end of May, according to Nigel Tahair, a city program manager in transportation planning. A major objective will be reducing the cost to something more manageable, which could necessitate abandoning the plans for tunnelling, he said.

One alternative considered in 2010 was to connect Queens Quay to Union with an underground moving walkway, instead of streetcar tracks. Passengers would disembark at Queens Quay and take the walkway about 500 m to the station.

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Although the environmental assessment rejected that idea because it “would create a major inconvenience for transit users, resulting in reduced quality of service and reduced ridership,” Tahair confirmed the walkway is hasn’t been ruled out as part of the redesign.

Timeline

1999

A city report called “Our Toronto Waterfront! — The Wave of the Future” envisions a day when “a streetcar line will run the full 46-kilometre length of the waterfront.”

2005

Council approves the East Bayfront Precinct Plan, which includes a transit right-of-way on Queens Quay East.

March 2010

An environmental assessment of East Bayfront transit commissioned by Waterfront Toronto recommends a streetcar line running on its own right-of-way on the south side of Queens Quay, from Bay St. to Parliament St.

September 2010

Corus Entertainment opens its 500,000-square-foot headquarters on Dockside Dr.

July 2012

In a vote of 38-6, council endorses the East Bayfront LRT “as an added priority for Toronto’s transit network.”

October 2012

George Brown College opens a 330,000-square-foot campus for its nursing and dental programs just west of Sherbourne Common.

November 2015

Council votes to “reset” waterfront transit planning, directing city staff to accelerate completion of the East Bayfront LRT and re-examine the cost to build it.