My second Saturday walk was “#StClairDisaster: Seeing is Believing”, a reference to the contentious debates about whether the streetcar right-of-way (ROW) is a disaster or not, and the ensuing #StClairDisaster twitter hashtag. This walk was guided by John Lorinc, a freelance journalist, who lead us from St. Clair West Sation to Dufferin.
I think most people agree with labelling the construction a fiasco, although many of the problems come from contractor problems, lawsuits and scope creep from non-transit projects, such as hydro work being tacked onto the project. These are all lessons to avoid similar mistakes in similar projects in the future.
People are quick to blame the ROW, but many other major street projects, Bloor being a notorious one, go over budget and schedule. Since there is no transit scapegoat to blame for the traffic problems in this case, the same level of vitriol isn’t present.
How the street is doing now is a different issue, and one that is split in the court of public opinion.
We were given a handout with some history and statistics about St. Clair. I won’t go into all the details but suffice it to say that traffic is down, transit use and speed is up, and development in the area is higher than it was before. Not to say that all of these can be attributed to the ROW, but it hardly paints the picture of a disaster. For example some people may avoid driving on St. Clair due to the perception of it being a bad place to drive. As Yogi Berra might say, “nobody goes there anymore, its too crowded.”
Most of the criticism tends to come from a driver’s perspective, which is a one sided way of looking at all the users of a street and their sometimes conflicting interests. However there are some definite issues regarding traffic flow. Between Vaughan and Bathurst there is a bit of a bottleneck due to a pre-existing cramped structure and the presence of on-street parking. The cramped structure also makes it difficult to make the necessary U-turns where left turns are not permitted, which can be especially difficult for trucks. One wonders if this particular parking needs to be there, especially considering that there is more parking post ROW due to the construction of Green P lots during the process. This can be an example of the desires of merchants who want parking for their customers conflicting with those who want to drive through the street.
Emergency vehicles are also another stakeholder, as they need to be able to get to those who need their help. A woman from Save Our St. Clair (the group behind the aforementioned lawsuit) claimed that emergency vehicles can have trouble with the space requirements due to the central poles which support the overhead wiring.
When people talk about the area booming, the most obvious location is around Wychwood and Christie. As Councillor Shelley Carrol described it, the rents spread outward from the Wychwood Barns. Lorinc talked about the concept of coffee shop urbanism. That coffee shops are the bedrock of a retail streetscape because they are pedestrain magnets that cause people to linger, and shop at other businesses. He talks of there being only one Second Cup when he moved in, but now many parts of St. Clair seem to have an ever increasing number of cafes. So much so that he wonders just how many it can support.
Fears of killing the sidewalk life and people having to walk single file seem to be overstated. Some even argue that the ROW makes the street friendlier, and it feels more like a 2 lane road than a 6 lane arterial.
The group then all hopped on the streetcar at Dufferin and headed to Old Weston where the tightness of the road under the rail bridge creates a notorious bottleneck. Unfortunately I had to leave to head to my next walk. Until next time…
I have/will attend some Jane’s Walks this weekend, and will do some short posts about them over the next several days, so keep an eye out and hear about my particular Jane’s Walk experiences this year. It is always a great event, with tons of great guided group walks all over the city. The only downside is there are too many to choose from.
I will start with my first Saturday morning walk “Broadview: Exploring Todmorden to East Chinatown,” which started at Pottery Road and Broadview, and headed down Broadview and some sidestreets eventually finishing at Gerrard. This walk was led by Lori Zuppinger, who works at Todmorden Mills.
Here we are at the start of the walk, looking down onto Todmorden Mills, one of the first on the Don, as the Humber attracted more attention early on. The valley is rife with infrastructure, so much so that you can’t see the river. It is hard to imagine it as a deeply forested swampy meandering water course.
The Taylor family were one of the early land and mill owners in this area. An expansive manor was once where the Dairy Queen is now, which we are standing behind.
Walk in the alley next to a rather unremarkable building on Broadview just north of Chester Hills and you will find the side of the original structure from the Don Mills Road School. Broadview was originally called Don Mills Road due to the mills on the Don, but the name was changed south of the Danforth to Broadview, and eventually the northern part as well. This building was sold to the Estonian community in the 1960s where it still serves its current function as a cultural and community centre.
At the end of Chester Hills Road is a great lookout over the Don Valley. The completion of the Prince Edward or Bloor Viaduct allowed this area to be developed from the farmland it mostly was at the time. It may be Toronto’s most famous bridge, no doubt immortalized by its role in Michael Ondaatje’s “In The Skin of a Lion.” The subway deck that wouldn’t be used for decades due to foresight or grandeur of RC Harris, is also a part of the mythology.
Most people only acknowledge the main bridge, but the smaller bridge that spans the Rosedale Valley, and the artificial hill and angled intersection at Parliament were also an important part of the successful design. For more details on the story, “Unbuilt Toronto” is a great source of information.
The 2003 installation of Luminous Veil, the name of the art piece, and suicide barrier, remains unlit despite its original intention. It was one of the most “deadly” bridges, but one wonders if that “latent demand” distributed among other bridges.
Just east of the viaduct is one of Toronto’s first public washrooms, designed to service all the people crossing the bridge. It was closed in the 1980s due to lack of use and cost concerns. It has housed various community institutions since that time.
The Playter family was another early landowner in the area, hence the neighbourhood name, Playter Estates. The intersection at Broadview and Danforth was a major hub in early east Toronto. The Yoga Studios on the southeast corner were once a major dance hall where all the big names used to play in the roaring 20s.
Just before Montcrest on Broadview is a historical plaque recognizing the contributions of William Peyton Hubbard, Toronto’s first elected black politician. Once a baker and chaffeur, he saved George Brown from a carriage accident and became his personal chaffeur. George Brown was impressed with Hubbard’s abilities and encouraged him to run for office. He heeded the advice and was elected alderman, later becoming Deputy Mayor. When he retired he moved into this estate.
We then headed down to Riverdale Park East, to talk about the Don Jail, Bridgepoint Health and its predecessors as well as the Riverdale Library. I had to leave partway through as the walk was running long, but I have chronicled many of these stories before in my post about Riverdale. Until next time…
Junction Triangle
The Junction Triangle is a triangular neighbourhood, which is carved out by 3 rail corridors and consists of many brownfield sites along with the normal residential and commercial areas. The Grand Trunk, Grey and Bruce, and Northern Railway lines were what initially brought that industry along with residences for the workers. In the latter half of the 20th century, these railways no longer stopped in the triangle, and the industry began to fade.
Recently it has been the subject of more attention though. In 2009, residents voted to settle on the Junction Triangle name for the often fuzzily defined area and mishmash of names. Some of the abandoned rail infrastructure and right of way was also turned into the cycling and pedestrian path, the West Toronto Railpath. It currently only exists in the Junction Triangle, but plans are underway to expand it. Many former industrial buildings have been repurposed for lofts, and the boom in the area can be visualized by the many development notices and studies underway for more extensive secondary plans in the neighbourhood.
The Junction Triangle is a triangular shaped neighbourhood created by the borders of 3 CN and CP rail lines to the north, west and east.
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I started walking west along Bloor from the east rail fork and finished walking near the same place going south.
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Junction Triangle was walked on April 27, 2012.
Only a short stretch of Bloor is located in the Triangle. It is an odd little stretch, with mural ridden rail unnderpasses, monolithic apartment buildings that don’t meet the street particularly well, vacant lots, and little stretches of retail and houses.
The West Toronto Railpath runs alongside the west rail corridor which at this point contains both the Milton and Georgetown (Kitchener now I suppose) GO lines which branch just north of the Triangle. This corridor is likely to see even more rail traffic with the advent of the Air Rail Link, which itself has been the subject of much controversy. One issue is the push for electrification to prevent more diesel trains from effecting local air quality, which the Clean Train Coalition has fought tirelessly to promote. I ran across a Metrolinx air quality monitoring station, and they have promised to eventually electrify, but you know, promises… There has also been a push by council to add more stops to the route, which to me missed the point of an airport express route. There is a need for one, but Toronto like many cities stands to gain from parallel local and express airport routes to service business class and budget travellers, and most importantly, the people who actually work at the airport. Finally there’s the issue of fares, which Toronto is certainly in the running to be “world class” to say the least. Saying that it will be cheaper than taking a cab doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.
The West Toronto Rail Path, opened in 2009, is a great example of a successful rails-to-trail project. Currently it runs 2km from Cariboo Ave, north of Dupont, to Dundas and Sterling. The Phase 2 plan is to extend the trail 2 km south to Strachan, with further plans to extend to Union Station under consideration.
Stairs lead to the path below the bridges over Bloor and Dupont, while other former dead end streets now have lively entrances to the WTR. The signage is very well done, with each “station” given a 3 letter acronym corresponding to the connecting street. The hollowed out letters on the rusted metal gives a very nice rail aesthetic to this mixed use trail.
The path is quite a vivid place, despite much of the post industrial landscape and rail infrastructure it passes through. Lots of graffiti, public art, and interesting industrial architecture dot the pathway. Local businesses have even gotten into the spirit advertising their businesses with large murals like the Osler Fish Warehouse has done.
The WTR has proven a popular feature of the area and has contributed to its recent growth, with many industrial buildings converted into lofts, and development proposals for vacant brownfields. The Wallace entrance for example, has become quite a hub where the rail infrastructure used to be a barrier.
The portion south of Bloor is the one with the most former industrial buildings, and some active ones. Walking along Sterling Road, the smell of chocolate is rich in the air due to the nearby Nestle plant. Many of the buildings now host recreational uses such as a circus school, and an axe throwing league among others. The 10 storey tower in the second picture is a heritage building on Castlepoint owned land. The building is currently fenced off and surrounded by rubble and more vacant land.
Castlepoint has a plan to turn this area into a Junction or Liberty Village type development. The plan includes a mix of townhouses and towers housing 1500 people in concert with some Artscape live-work spaces. A high tech commercial area, and boutique retail is supposed to provide approximately 3000 jobs. However, contamination issues and approval of the project and rezoning from employment land to mixed use remain issues. The city is undergoing a review of employment zoned lands right now, and consideration of the proposal is on hold until then. Neighbourhood support is mixed among people who want the neighbourhood to stay the same versus those who welcome the change. Nestle and other users of the area also oppose the plan due to the propensity of incoming residents into active industrial areas to complain and demand changes to those industrial uses. This creates an unstable situation of those uses and the few people in this city who still actually make things. I think some sort of balance must be struck in these situations before development begins.
Dupont is one of the active commercial streets in the neighbourhood, with mostly at grade retail and some inset plazas. There is a significant Hispanic footprint on this stretch of retail with many restaurants specializing in the cuisine.
Some older buildings can also be found, such as the retail at Edwin and Dupont, and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of St. Andrew across the street.
The part of the neighbourhood north of Bloor is more residential, with a variety of housing both new and old, as well as a large stacked townhouse and apartment complex just north of Bloor near the east rail fork.
Many churches can be found in the interior here as well, such as St. Josephat Ukrainian Catholic Church, and the 7th Day Adventist Church which is under a development proposal to convert to residential purposes, and add a new residential structure in the parking lot.
This part of the Junction Triangle has a very quaint feel to it, with lush parks, many corner stores, and a streetscape on Wallace that almost appears out of small town. Until next time…
