Sean Marshall

Category: Roads

  • The jarring streetscape of Jarvis Street

    The jarring streetscape of Jarvis Street

    Curb lanes closed for condominium construction have defeated the purpose of Jarvis Street’s fifth reversible lane

    Over a century ago, Jarvis Street was Toronto’s most fashionable address, and home to prominent families including the Masseys, who made their wealth from the farm equipment industry, and whose names live on through Massey Hall, Hart House, the Fred Victor Mission, and Massey College. The wide boulevards allowed for lush street trees to flourish, and without streetcars, there was no need for a wide roadway, despite the generous right-of-way.

    Jarvis Street looking south towards Carlton Street in the 1880s. City of Toronto Archives: Fonds 1478, Item 12.

    By the 1920s, though, Jarvis was no longer fashionable, with Forest Hill, North Rosedale, and Moore Park taking its place. Many of the old mansions fell into disrepair or were converted into apartments or businesses. The street became lined with low-rise apartment buildings, budget hotels, and missions to the poor and unhoused. After the Second World War, the city government decided to extend Mount Pleasant Road south of St. Clair Avenue to Bloor and Jarvis Streets and widen Jarvis Street to accommodate the increased traffic. Along with building the Dundas Street East extension, widening Dufferin Street, and pushing through Eastern Avenue, the City of Toronto was bending to the whims of the automobile, several years before the creation of Metropolitan Toronto in 1954.

    Jarvis Street looking north from Carlton Street, January 1947, just before the street trees were removed and the street widened. City of Toronto Archives, Series 372, Item 1725.

    By the 1960s, Jarvis Street became the preferred address of federal institutions such as the Moss Park Armoury, the regional Unemployment Insurance offices at Dundas Street, and the brutalist Ontario headquarters for the RCMP. The provincial government expanded the old Juvenile Court with a new modernist building, and Simpsons-Sears, the predecessor of Sears Canada, built a new imposing office building at 222 Jarvis, adjacent to the Simpsons warehouse on Mutual Street.

    Victorian rowhouses stand next to the brutalist RCMP building on Jarvis Street, north of Shuter Street in 1979. The RCMP building later became the home of the Grand Hotel, which installed a glass veneer over the imposing west façade. The Unemployment Insurance office, at the corner of Dundas Street appears in the far left. Both the RCMP/Grand Hotel and the UIC (later Hilton Garden Inn) building were recently demolished, but the rowhouses still stand.
    Photo by Harvey R. Naylor. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1526, File 61, Item 27.

    Jarvis Street was also the home of several of the CBC’s scattered radio and television studio spaces until they were consolidated at the CBC Broadcasting Centre on Front Street, and it was also the location of the first Four Seasons Hotel, when it started out as a chic motor hotel.

    Jarvis Street looking south from north of Carlton Street; the Four Seasons Motor Hotel at 415 Jarvis Street and St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church are visible in the background. Note the centre lane indicator above. Creator: Skinner, Dorothea Skinner. City of Toronto Archives Fonds 492, Item 170.

    By the early 1960s, Jarvis Street was reconfigured further to include a new reversible centre lane between Queen Street and Mount Pleasant Road at Charles Street. Then, as now, the centre lane was designated for southbound traffic, except during weekday afternoon rush hour, when the flow is reversed. Parking is prohibited at all times on the east side of the street, while on the west side, street parking is permitted except during the morning and afternoon peak periods. This, at least in theory, allows for two lanes of unobstructed traffic in both directions at all times, and in the rush hours, three lanes of peak-direction traffic. This, of course, depended on strict enforcement of parking and stopping prohibitions, and the lack of construction or other obstructions.

    As Jarvis Street rebounded and new residential development and commercial development began to line the street between the mid-1980s and the present day, the five-lane traffic arterial layout became less suitable. In 2009, City of Toronto staff recommended, with extensive public input, that it was desirable to remove the reversible centre lane, narrow the roadway, and widen the sidewalk on the east side of the street to improve the public realm and address the needs of the thousands of new residents who were moving into the east end of Downtown Toronto. The additional space would have allowed for tree planters and wayfinding signage that would highlight the street’s history. Studies conducted by city staff found that there was no need for the fifth lane to provide adequate traffic movement along the street.

    Cyclists, however, were unhappy that the road redesign did not include cycling lanes and they were able to convince council to alter its plans. As a result, in 2010, the road was not reconstructed, but the reversible lane was removed, with new painted cycle lanes on both sides of the street.

    When Toronto elected Rob Ford as mayor that October, he promised an end to “the war on the car,” even inviting now-disgraced hockey commentator Don Cherry to give the inaugural speech, which turned out to be a controversial rant against “pinko cyclists” and “left wing kooks.” In 2011, with the support of suburban councillors, Rob Ford reversed the decision to install bike lanes on Jarvis Street (along with Pharmacy Avenue and Birchmount Road in Scarborough), and the reversible lane was re-installed.

    Ironically, the demand by cyclists for bike lanes made it easy to restore the auto-oriented configuration, while widened sidewalks would have been much more difficult to remove.

    Between Dundas and Gerrard Street, the lanes shift to accommodate a lane closure for a new condominium tower on the east side of Jarvis Street.

    With much needed watermain and road reconstruction in the last few years, the traffic advantage provided by the reversible lane was negated because of the construction barriers. Several condominium towers being constructed along the street, at Carlton, Gerrard, and Shuter Streets, have further affected the ability of that fifth lane to move motorists quickly, effectively, or safely. Between Dundas and Gerrard Streets, the lanes temporarily shift for a long-term lane closure on the east side, just south of Gerrard. This lane shift adds additional confusion to an already confusing road layout.

    Looking north to Shuter Street, with the curb lane temporarily marked for right turns only.

    At Shuter Street, the construction of the Hyatt Place hotel and condominium apartment development has seen the northbound curb lane closed for several years. Approaching Shuter, the curb lane is marked as a right-turn lane, but it is used as an illegal bypass of traffic waiting at the light or turning left onto Shuter towards St. Michael’s Hospital and the Eaton Centre. This, combined with the hidden sightlines caused by the construction hoarding on the northeast corner, makes it especially dangerous for southbound motorists as well as pedestrians and cyclists crossing at this point. Beyond the construction hoarding, the right lane is used for construction crew parking, as well as staging for vehicles such as cement trucks.

    Looking down towards the Hyatt Place development, showing the obstructed northbound curb lane, as well as a grey SUV crossing into the centre lane, which was reserved for opposing traffic when this photo was taken.

    The long-term closure of lanes on Jarvis Street should make it clear to city officials that the outdated and unsafe middle lane is of no practical use, and it finally has got to go.

    At Jarvis and Shuter Streets, the northbound right turn lane is used by impatient motorists, including a City of Toronto garbage truck, a taxi cab, and the driver of a speeding Lincoln Navigator.

    Collisions are common on Jarvis Street because of the reversible centre lane — which exists nowhere else in Toronto, and in only a few places elsewhere in Canada — because of driver confusion, impatience, negligence and incompetence. As Jarvis Street becomes home to thousands of more residents in the next few years, is beyond time that the street becomes safer and more attractive to live, work, and enjoy life on.

  • GO Transit is broken – and other transit updates

    GO Transit buses stuck in Downtown Toronto gridlock in July, 2022

    While travelling through the Northeastern United States this spring and summer, I found myself feeling lucky to be living in Toronto. Though the New York City Subway and the PATH trains between New Jersey and Manhattan were operating pretty much as I remember them, in other big cities, the mass transit systems were in rough shape. In Washington, underfunding and incompetence led to the long-term withdrawal of over half of its Metro cars. During our visit in April, we were treated to long waits and crowded trains, though at least the system was clean. When we visited Philadelphia in late June, it was clear that the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA) had given up: poor communications, lengthy waits, unsafe subway stations, and general apathy among staff and passengers made my spouse and I resort to driving on our last day there.

    In Toronto, at least, the subway was still running frequently (with only minor service cuts due to the pandemic), the buses and streetcars as (un)reliable as ever, and despite more anti-social behaviour on some of its surface routes, I almost never felt afraid for my well-being when riding the Rocket, compared to my experience in Philly. GO Transit responded to the pandemic very well. Though it was forced to suspend many of its train and bus trips due to a sudden plunge in ridership, it maintained a basic service level on nearly all of its routes, slowly restoring certain services in 2021 as ridership slowly rebounded. Some corridors, like the Kitchener Line, had more service in the early Fall of 2021 than it did prior to the pandemic. As Metrolinx continued planning and construction of major transit projects like GO Expansion, the Ontario Line, and several LRT corridors, the future looked bright. In Spring 2022, GO Transit introduced a special weekend day pass for $10 per day or $15 per weekend, to help grow ridership.

    Unfortunately by late June 2022, GO began to fall apart.

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  • Deadly by design: Warden and Comstock

    On Thursday, July 21, 2022, at 3:10 PM, a 38-year-old man was standing at a street corner in Scarborough, waiting for a signal to safely cross to the other side. Before he even had the chance to enter the intersection of Warden Avenue at Comstock Road, a driver of a 2009 silver Kia minivan heading south on Warden struck a 2012 red Lexus, whose driver was making a left turn from Warden to Comstock.

    Aerial view of the collision, courtesy of CTV News. The Kia minivan struck a 38-year-old man waiting at the corner before plowing into a fence protecting a vacant lot.

    When the two vehicles collided, the Kia minivan sped into the southwest corner, striking the pedestrian and a metal pole that held a pedestrian signal button, before plowing into a fence. The man standing at the corner died soon after being rushed to hospital.

    A week after the deadly collision, I visited the intersection. On the southwest corner of Warden and Comstock, a roadside memorial was set up with flowers and a wooden cross. A temporary wooden pole held up a new pedestrian “beg button” for walkers to get across Warden Avenue. The Kia’s path into the sidewalk and the fence was very much visible, though all debris from the collision was cleaned up.

    Appeal to witnesses following a deadly collision at Warden Avenue and Comstock Road

    The collision was still being investigated. While the Toronto Police were looking for witnesses to the collision, an investigator from Aviva Insurance was also looking for witnesses; several notices were taped to nearby traffic poles.

    Without knowing all the facts of the collision — which are unlikely to be reported in the news media — it would be fair to assume that speed and/or inattentive driving were at fault, but the design of the intersection — as well as Warden Avenue and Comstock Road themselves — are also to blame.

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  • A front row seat to Toronto’s Carmaggedon

    A front row seat to Toronto’s Carmaggedon

    On Saturday, my spouse and I decided to take advantage of the GO Transit weekend day pass and take the train to Hamilton for a short excursion. We did some shopping on James Street North in Downtown Hamilton and on Ottawa Street in the city’s east end, where there’s a great cluster of fabric, decor, and antique shops, as well as cafes and restaurants.

    The new weekend passes, which cost $10 for one day and $15 for two days, have been a major contributor to GO Transit’s ridership recovery. Though weekend ridership has recovered to 90 percent of pre-pandemic levels (despite lower service levels on many routes), weekday ridership is only half of what it was in 2019.

    On our return trip to Toronto, we decided to take the Route 16 express bus, departing from Hamilton GO Centre at 3:30. As the train between Union and Hamilton’s West Harbour Stations runs only every hour, it seemed that the express bus to Union Station would be the fastest and most convenient option. How wrong we were.

    A line of GO buses attempting to turn left from Lake Shore Boulevard to Yonge Street

    As we were among the first to board the double-decker bus, we had front row seats to Toronto’s Carmageddon.

    Despite it being a beautiful afternoon on the long weekend, the ride on Highway 403, the Queen Elizabeth Way, and the Gardiner Expressway was uneventful, with only a few spots where traffic moved slowly. Until the bus got off the York-Bay-Yonge ramp, we were making decent time. That is when we were confronted with a long line of cars and trucks, all trying to turn north on York, Bay, and Yonge Streets.

    The new Union Station Bus Terminal, located on the north side of the westbound Lake Shore Boulevard lanes, requires buses coming from the west to turn left on to Yonge Street from eastbound Lake Shore, and then turn left again onto westbound Lakeshore before turning right into the terminal itself.

    After finally turning north from eastbound Lake Shore Boulevard, private vehicles, a Rider Express bus, and GO Transit buses attempt to turn left onto a gridlocked westbound Lake Shore Boulevard

    But with construction obstructing two westbound lanes of Lake Shore at Bay Street, drivers leaving the first of two Blue Jays games that afternoon (a rare doubleheader hosting the Tampa Bay Rays), and other drivers arriving for the evening Jays game, an Eric Church concert at Scotiabank Arena, along with the usual weekend traffic, traffic could not move, creating literal gridlock. Police or traffic wardens that could monitor and manage the gridlock were nowhere to be seen.

    Motorists jam the intersection of Lake Shore Boulevard West and Yonge Street
    One driver expresses his frustration with the traffic

    At 5:50, 2 hours and 20 minutes after the bus departed Hamilton GO Centre, we were let out on the curb outside the terminal entrance. In response to the backlog of buses attempting to enter and exit the Union Station terminal, GO cut back the Route 16, meeting the half-hourly Lakeshore West train service at Aldershot Station (one stop short of West Harbour). Several Route 16, 21, and 31 trips were cancelled due to the traffic in the downtown core, requiring some customers in places like Milton and Georgetown to wait an entire hour for the next bus.

    After similar gridlock conditions on Sunday, July 3, Route 21 (Milton Corridor) and Route 31 (Kitchener Corridor) buses were rerouted to Port Credit GO, requiring a transfer to trains there.

    The new terminal’s location is excellent for consolidating all intercity bus and rail services and is much safer than the old Union Station Terminal or the dilapidated Metro Toronto Coach Terminal at Bay and Dundas Streets. Direct, indoor connections can be made with the subway, several hotels, Scotiabank Arena, and to the vast PATH system of underground walkways. Its major failure, however, is the lack of dedicated bus lanes to speed highway coaches in and out of the facility.

    On Lake Shore Boulevard. The bus entrance to the Union Station terminal is at right

    There is an exceptionally wide sidewalk on the north side of Lake Shore approaching the bus entrance to the terminal, and an extremely short bus lane in front of the terminal’s entrance and exit. It is no wonder why some private coach operators, such as FlixBus and Onex, opt for on-street stops, rather than the terminal used by GO, Megabus, Rider Express, TOK, and Ontario Northland.

    Toronto’s shortest and least-effective bus lane, in front of the Union Station Bus Terminal. Note the sign reading “be patient – drive with care” above.

    A dedicated bus lane for the entire distance between Yonge and Bay Streets would undoubtedly improve operations. A dedicated left turn lane from Yonge to westbound Lakeshore would also allow easier access to the terminal from the west, where the majority of GO and intercity coach buses arrive from. Similar dedicated left turn lanes at Queen Street and Central Park Drive in Brampton allow Brampton Transit buses to quickly enter and exit the Bramalea Terminal. Better traffic management, including police enforcement, would help ensure a clear path for transit and coach buses.

    The gridlock continued west of Bay Street, as motorists lined up to get to the Gardiner Expressway or go west on Lake Shore Boulevard

    GO Transit’s reaction, to reroute buses to the already-crowded Lakeshore West Train, is not a sustainable solution, though it is the only effective tool it has at the moment. Though Route 16 passengers are not taken far out of their way with a transfer at Aldershot GO, the detour is more onerous for some Route 21 and all Route 31 passengers forced to backtrack to Port Credit GO for a forced transfer there.

    Stouffville and Barrie Corridor passengers were spared the hassles with the return of weekend train service earlier this year. Unfortunately, Canadian Pacific’s control of almost the entirety of the Milton Corridor precludes midday, evening, and weekend train service, but there’s an opportunity to finally bring limited weekend train service to the Kitchener Corridor. GO Transit already offers an hourly midday and evening weekday train service to Mount Pleasant Station in Brampton, despite CN’s control of the corridor west of Bramalea Station.

    Track improvements completed nearly 20 years ago (an additional track between Bramalea and Mount Pleasant and a second platform at Brampton GO Station) provides the capacity for hourly GO trains and CN’s freight operations. Weekend Route 30 bus service between Kitchener and Bramalea can provide a reasonable and reliable bus link until corridor improvements, such as new passing tracks, are completed between Georgetown and Kitchener.

    As I was sitting in traffic for an hour, I found myself aggravated once again by Blue Jays CEO Mark Shapiro lobbying the city to end the Sunday closure of Lake Shore Boulevard West to allow for the city’s (much-diminished) Active TO program. In a letter addressed to Mayor John Tory, General Manager of Transportation Services Barbara Gray, and the city clerk, Shapiro argued that “removing one of the only ways into and out of the downtown core would be extremely challenging to our fans” claiming that “on the days when Active TO has been in effect on Lake Shore, our local fans have experienced significant transit delays because traffic is grinded to a halt on all downtown routes.” (It is worth noting that the Toronto Blue Jays baseball club is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rogers Communications. The mayor of Toronto, a former Rogers executive, remains involved with the Rogers family trust.)

    The Lake Shore closure allowed cyclists and runners to bypass the overcrowded Martin Goodman Trail along Toronto’s Western Beaches, on a section of roadway paralleled by GO Transit’s Lakeshore Corridor. The traffic congestion last weekend was completely unrelated to ActiveTO (which is now suspended on Lake Shore Boulevard, partly due to Shaprio’s lobbying) and transit riders, who make up a large percentage of the Blue Jays’ fanbase, were left in the mess that motorists made.

  • From lake to lake: the story of Hurontario Street

    Looking north from Lake Ontario up Hurontario Street in Port Credit

    Ontario’s first roads were trade routes established by First Nations, including the Toronto Carrying Place, which linked Lake Ontario, Lake Simcoe, and Lake Huron. These routes followed the topology and existing water courses, making navigation simple and avoiding steep hills. Many modern streets, such as Toronto’s Davenport Road, follow these old trails.

    With the establishment of the British colony of Upper Canada, new roads were established that took straight lines, instead of following existing trails or the lay of the land. Governor John Graves Simcoe named two of these routes — Yonge Street and Dundas Street — after British officials. Though Yonge and Dundas Streets were established for military purposes, they soon became used for settlement.

    Hurontario Street — a portmanteau of “Huron” and “Ontario” — was among the first of a new wave of roads laid out by colonial officials, established for settlement purposes. These colonization roads were built across southwestern and south-central Ontario and became the basis for the concession land grant system that forms the grid of country roads and arterial avenues throughout Southern Ontario.

    Other roads surveyed and built in this period included Simcoe Street, which connected Lake Ontario (at Oshawa) with Lake Scugog (at today’s Port Parry); Brock Road, which ran between Hamilton Harbour and Guelph with branches towards Lake Huron near modern-day Port Elgin (Elora Road) and towards Owen Sound (Garafraxa Road). Huron Road led west from Guelph towards Goderich through lands held by the Canada Company.

    Hurontario Street followed a nearly straight line north from Lake Ontario, perpendicular to the shoreline, with only a slight bend near present-day Orangeville to reach Georgian Bay at a perpendicular angle. Together with the Toronto-Sydenham Road, which branched off northwest towards Owen Sound, it quickly became an important route.

    Taverns, villages, and towns were established along the way, including Cooksville, Buffy’s Corners (which incorporated as the Village of Brampton in 1853) and Collingwood. Collingwood proved to be an excellent harbour and became famous for its shipbuilding industry.

    Looking south from Georgian Bay up Hurontario Street in Downtown Collingwood

    But Hurontario’s straight trajectory was a problem. For the first 57 kilometres, the straight line was sufficient, as it followed a mostly flat route through present-day Mississauga and Brampton and climbed the Niagara Escarpment on a relatively gentle incline in Caledon. But through Dufferin and Simcoe Counties, the surveyed route went up and down several steep hills on the edge of the escarpment, including Hockley Valley and Boyne Valley. The final descent down the Niagara Escarpment towards Collingwood was very steep.

    Early settlers were granted low-cost or free land grants in exchange for clearing and improving their land and maintaining the new settlement roads being drawn across southern Ontario. They rerouted troublesome segments of the surveyed roadways and either abandoned the surveyed road allotments or designated new survey lines for through traffic. In Dufferin County, traffic switched to the first concession line to the west, which offered an easier path towards Owen Sound. The Town of Orangeville was established where the route deviated.

    Hurontario Street on the eastern outskirts of Orangeville, crossing the old alignment of Highway 9. Highway 10 curves on a bypass around Downtown Orangeville in the background.

    Like many early roads, Hurontario Street’s importance declined with the growing network of railways in Ontario. In 1855, the Ontario, Simcoe and Huron Railway reached Collingwood and the Great Western Railway opened between Toronto and Hamilton. The next year, the Grand Truck Railway opened its line through Brampton; the Toronto, Grey and Bruce Railway (TG&B) reached Orangeville 15 years later. Soon the TG&B built all the way to Owen Sound, closely following the Toronto-Sydenham Road.

    Hurontario Street is a discontinuous dirt road north of Island Lake at Orangeville.

    With the rise of motor vehicles in the 1920s, the Province of Ontario began establishing a highway network; the historical settlement roads became the foundation of this new system of roadways. Highway 10, one of the first 16 routes established by the province, followed the Toronto-Sydenham Road and Hurontario Street between Owen Sound and Port Credit, though it used the well-travelled First Line West through Mono Township, rather than the old, partially abandoned Hurontario Street alignment.

    Highway 10 increased in importance through the 20th century, especially when Toronto’s postwar growth reached Mississauga and Brampton. Highway 410 was built to relieve congestion on Highway 10 and other nearby routes; by 2019, the new highway connected with the old route north of Brampton, and Highway 10 through Mississauga and Brampton was no more, once-again simply known as Hurontario Street except in the older part of Brampton, where it remains Main Street.

    Meanwhile, the railways have fallen to the modern highway. The old TG&B, later acquired by Canadian Pacific, abandoned the Orangeville-Owen Sound line and its connecting branches by 1995. In 2021, the last train from Orangeville made its departure.

    As Mississauga and Brampton continue to grow, a new light rail transit line is being built on Hurontario Street. In a deviation from Metrolinx norms, instead of honouring the road on which this line is built, the PC-led government decided to name the LRT after Hazel McCallion, the former Mississauga mayor who, despite leaving some challenging legacies, has had many publicly funded spaces named for her. Time will tell whether residents will adopt the new name or, instead, favour a name that reflects the historical and contemporary importance of Hurontario Street. My hope is that transit users will continue to use the 200-year old name they’re most familiar with.

    What does First Line West or 2nd Line EHS mean?

    In Mono Township, the concession lines are numbered sequentially from how far east or west they are from Hurontario Street, which was the original basis for the land surveys. For example, 2nd Line EHS can be found two roads east of Hurontario Street. Highway 10 follows the first line west of Hurontario Street, a much gentler route than the original surveyed line. In the north half of Toronto Township (now the City of Mississauga), and in Chinguacousy and Caledon Townships (now Brampton and Caledon), these roads were similarly numbered before acquiring names. McLaughlin Road used to be known as First Line West, while Dixie Road used to go by Third Line East.

    As the centre line of several townships, Hurontario Street was often known as Centre Road, especially in Toronto Township (Mississauga) and Mulmur Township. In Mississauga, where Highway 10, Hurontario Street and Centre Road were once used interchangeably, it now goes exclusively by Hurontario Street.

    In Mono Township, north of Orangeville, 2nd Line E. H. S. can be found two survey lines east of Hurontario Street. Highway 10 follows 1st Line W. H. S. in Mono.

    Hurontario Street and other settlement roads

    As mentioned above, Hurontario Street was one of many early settlement and colonization roads established across the new colony, and later by the province. The first few roads, including Yonge and Dundas Streets, were surveyed and cleared by the colonial military as defensive routes first, but they quickly became important settlement roads. Roads such as Hurontario Street, established in the 1820s, had little military purpose, but became the basis for land surveys, which led to the establishment of townships and counties. Brock Road, Elora Road, and Durham Road are examples of these colonial settlement roads.

    In some cases, private companies or individuals who were given large land grants established their own roads to attract settlers and trade; Huron Road and Talbot Road are examples of these.

    Starting in the 1870s, the provincial government built new roads into less hospitable lands on the Canadian Shield, hoping to draw settlement further north as the supply of quality farming land was exhausted. In some cases, farmers were able to make a go of the marginal farmlands in northern Victoria, Hastings, and Lanark Counties, in other cases, the roads quickly fell into disuse. The Muskoka Road, built to Lake Nipissing, was a rare success: though there was little viable farmland along the route, it helped open up Northern Ontario for resource exploitation, tourism, and settlement. The Muskoka Road was upgraded in the 1920s and 1930s as the Ferguson Highway, before becoming part of Highway 11.

    The map below shows the routes of Hurontario Street and many other settlement and colonization roads in Southern and Central Ontario, along with the township system that followed these corridors.

    Map of settlement roads and townships in Ontario
  • The tragedy of East Buffalo

    The tragedy of East Buffalo

    Kensington Expressway, Buffalo

    Just two blocks away from the Jefferson Avenue Tops supermarket is Buffalo’s Kensington Expressway.

    The high-speed roadway, built with New York State funding, was built in the late 1950s to connect Downtown Buffalo with the New York State Thruway and the airport. The highway went through Buffalo’s East Side, historically Polish-American neighbourhoods that were becoming home to working-class and middle-class African-American families.

    Ironically, a parkway system planned by famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted beginning in the 1860s helped highway planners 90 years later route their new highway. Olmsted had planned large park spaces throughout the city, with wide, treed parkways connecting the spaces together. Delaware Park, to the north, was the largest of these green spaces. In 1901, it was the site for the Pan-American Exposition (which became infamous as the location of the assassination of President William McKinley), while Humboldt Park, on the city’s east side, became a popular neighbourhood gathering place. Humboldt Parkway connected these two parks with a wide, gentle curve.

    Part of the Olmsted Parks and Parkways plan, Buffalo. Humboldt Parkway curves southeast from Delaware Park near the top of the map.

    Of course, city planners of the day, who were guided by the “City Beautiful” movement, never conceived of a time when automobiles would present a new challenge to urban places. From the opening of the Erie Canal in the 1830s to the exploitation of cheap, renewable hydro-electric power at nearby Niagara Falls in the 1890s and early 1900s, Buffalo was going to be a jewel of the Great Lakes, and it needed skyscrapers and public spaces to match its optimism and ambition.

    Humboldt Parkway in 1953, with a wide, treed median on the right (The Buffalo History Museum)

    By the 1950s, Buffalo’s growth had plateaued, and the city started losing population to the suburbs, as white middle class families took advantage of generous federal mortgage incentives, and the automobile made suburban living easy. Redlining — a practice in which banks and federal mortgage underwriters graded neighbourhoods based on their physical and socioeconomic statuses — made mortgages in “declining” or “hazardous” areas difficult or impossible to get. These resulting grades discouraged investment in the housing stock and made it especially difficult for Black families to purchase homes. Racism and xenophobia was embedded in the system: areas that Eastern European immigrants were seen to be “infiltrating” were typically marked as “definitely declining” and areas settled by Black households were marked as “hazardous.”

    In Buffalo, a 1937 redlining map reflected the segregation that would define the city to this day: most of the city east of Main Street was classified as “definitely declining” or “hazardous.” Houses facing Humboldt Parkway were marked as “still desirable” as it is “a small area which maintains its desirability because of location on both sides of an attractive parkway.” That parkway would disappear 20 years later.

    Though the Niagara branch of the New York State Thruway connected Downtown Buffalo to Niagara Falls, the main Thruway, and Canadian border crossings, mostly following rail corridors, city leaders felt that without additional urban highways, Buffalo would lose investment and that more residents and employers would leave the city for the suburbs.

    In 1954, City Planning Director Russell Tryon declared that the new ring highway “would be a major step forward in alleviating the traffic blight that has diseased our neighborhood communities” while believing that highway construction might help keep people in the city, rather than literally drive them to suburbia. “If we make Buffalo a better place in which to live, the people will stay and not move out.”

    The Scajaquada Expressway through Delaware Park

    To build the new highway, planners looked for the paths of least resistance: Olmsted’s parkway system and redlined neighbourhoods where properties could be bought up cheap. None of the parkways on Buffalo’s West Side (which was, and remains, mostly white and middle class) would be sacrificed, but the Humboldt Parkway, on the East Side, would be. The Scajaquada Expressway, across the city’s north side, ran right through the signature Delaware Park. The Kensington Expressway — New York State Route 33 — required the demolition of hundreds of homes. Many displaced residents moved into public housing towers on Fillmore Avenue — which were later abandoned and demolished.

    The abandoned Kensington Heights public housing buildings on Fillmore Avenue in 2010

    The highway only helped to destroy Buffalo’s urban fabric and contributed to the economic and population decline in the East End.

    Buffalo was not alone. In Detroit, Interstates 75 and 375 were routed right along Hastings Street, the commercial and cultural hub for the Motor City’s Black community. In Baltimore, Interstate 70 was to go right downtown through the city’s West Side. The section through a Black neighborhood was built, but the western extension through Baltimore’s western suburbs was never completed, leaving behind a scar known as the “Highway to Nowhere.”

    Baltimore’s Highway to Nowhere

    In Buffalo, the East Side community struggled for decades to get a full-service supermarket after A&P left in the 1960s after the new highway was built. It finally landed Tops Friendly Markets on the A&P site in 2003. This grocery store — the only one serving over 100,000 residents in Buffalo’s East End — became the site of Buffalo’s worst mass shooting, in which a white teenager targeted Black shoppers. The closure of that store only compounds the tragedy as fresh and affordable food has become, once again, even harder to access.

    Now, New York State is planning for the removal of several urban highways built through Black neighbourhoods, including Interstate 81 through Syracuse, the remainder of Rochester’s Inner Belt, and Buffalo’s Kensington Expressway. Reconnecting Buffalo’s East Side and investing in great public spaces could be a positive first step to living up to being “The City of Good Neighbors.”

  • Do I stay, or do I go now?

    Pedestrian crossing at Victoria Park, Cobourg

    At the corner of King Street (former Highway 2) and College Street in Cobourg, adjacent to Victoria Park on the eastern edge of Downtown Cobourg, there’s a marked pedestrian crossing, with clear “zebra” road markings on the pavement.

    The sign, in bright fluorescent yellow, reads “PEDESTRIAN X.” Below, a second sign, also in bright yellow, reads “STOP FOR PEDESTRIANS.” The message is clear enough.

    However, a smaller white sign below, facing the sidewalk, reads “CAUTION – VEHICLES NOT REQUIRED TO STOP.”

    So which is it?

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  • A welcome revision at Major Mackenize

    Earlier this year, I wrote about a major malfunction at a new Viva Rapidway station near Downtown Richmond Hill. The Major Mackenzie station on Yonge Street was built one block south of the busy east-west arterial road; passengers taking Viva buses were forced to walk from Major Mackenzie Drive south to the intersection of at the intersection of Elmwood Avenue and Hopkins Street, push a “beg button” and wait to cross to the bus platforms in the middle of Yonge.

    The reason for this unusual situation was that the Yonge Street right-of-way narrows through Downtown Richmond Hill. At Major Mackenzie Drive, northbound Viva buses must enter mixed traffic for approximately two kilometres before returning to a median busway. (The northbound traffic signal at Major Mackenzie has a dedicated transit phase that allows Viva buses to exit the median ahead of general traffic.) This required the median Viva bus stop (called a VivaStation) to be located considerably south of the intersection of Yonge Street and Major Mackenzie Drive.

    Back in February, temporary barriers and YRT transit enforcement officers were used to dissuade transit customers from Back in February, temporary barriers and YRT transit enforcement officers were used to dissuade transit customers from taking the faster and direct, yet more dangerous, route to Major Mackenzie Drive and connecting east-west buses by crossing midblock north of the platform, the faster and direct, yet more dangerous, route to Major Mackenzie Drive and connecting east-west buses.

    The Major Mackenzie VivaStation and layout, February 2021

    To my pleasant surprise, York Region fixed its mistake. Though the revised station is not ideal (it is still a long walk from Major Mackenzie Drive itself), a new walkway alongside the east side of the bus right-of-way from the VivaStation to the Major Mackenzie intersection makes the transfer to and from buses on Major Mackenzie much simpler.

    Looking south from Major Mackenzie Drive

    Just north of the bus platforms, a signed crosswalk allows passengers to go from the walkway and northbound platform to the southbound platform on the west side of the bus right-of-way.

    Looking north towards Major Mackenzie Drive at the new crosswalk, which allows passengers to go between the southbound bus platform to a new walkway connecting the Major Mackenzie VivaStation to its namesake street.

    Permanent metal rails prevent passengers from crossing Yonge Street until they get to the signalized intersection at Major Mackenzie. But transit enforcement officers were nowhere to be seen on this visit, on a Friday afternoon.

    Metal barricades deter pedestrian crossings outside of signalized crosswalks.

    Unfortunately, to make room for the walkway between the station and Major Mackenzie Drive, the northbound bicycle lane was cut, and replaced with “sharrows.” Though the new bicycle lanes on Yonge ended at Major Mackenzie (not enough room if you have to maintain four through traffic lanes through a historic town centre), this diminishes the gains cyclists made with the reconstruction of Yonge Street for the BRT lanes.

    When surface transit projects — like the Viva Rapidways — are designed to fit into existing suburban roadways, compromises to the passenger experience are made. At Richmond Hill, this meant maintaining two traffic lanes in each direction while trying to squeeze a bus rapid transit station into the roadway. This resulted in the original blunder, which should have been thought though earlier in the planning stages.

    The fix is not perfect, but it at least addresses the problems with the Major Mackenzie BRT station. Perhaps, one day, we will plan for transit, walking, and cycling first in places like Downtown Richmond Hill, rather than planning for private motor traffic first.

  • Shining a light on Toronto’s streetlamps

    Shining a light on Toronto’s streetlamps

    Replacement high pressure sodium lamp on left, the white glow of Toronto’s classic “acorn” lamp on right.

    Street lighting is an important, yet overlooked, part of any city’s standard infrastructure. For over seventy years, Toronto’s streets were lit with an elegant and increasingly unique streetlamp design. But modern standards and a desire for standardization will see this change, just as Toronto’s streetcars and street signs have.

    Toronto Hydro, which is responsible for Toronto’s street lighting, is replacing the older “acorn” lamps with high pressure sodium (HPS) cobra head lamps (so-called due to their shape when seen from the top or bottom). While surrounding municipalities are switching to white-burning LED lights, Toronto Hydro is installing the older beige-orange glowing lamps.

    I asked Toronto Hydro what their long-term plans were for the city’s street lighting infrastructure. Read more on Spacing’s website.

  • Signs of recognition

    Signs of recognition

    New “No Exit- Pedestrians Excepted” sign in Moore Park

    Back in January, inspired by a Twitter thread that expressed the frustration of getting around the city by foot, my Walk Toronto colleague Dylan Reid suggested that we could create an inventory of all instances in the city where “No Exit” signs do not apply to all road users.

    As part of this project, I created a map of all streets where “no exit” signs betrayed an exit for pedestrians and/or cyclists, with suggestions coming in from all over Toronto. Over 450 locations were identified.

    On April 8, Toronto City Council approved a motion brought forward by Councillor Paula Fletcher to change that. Councillor Fletcher’s motion was titled “I’m Walking Here.” Only two months later, new signs are already appearing across Toronto — in Scarborough, Monarch Park, and Swansea. For a city that often takes years to adopt what may seem like simple, easy solutions, this was implemented impressively quickly. The new signs look like standard yellow “no exit” signs, but with a “pedestrians excepted” note at the bottom.

    My hope is that these signs will entice Torontonians to get outside, go for a walk, and check out some new streets and parks, enticed by these signs inviting through passage.

    In related news, this week Toronto Council approved the expansion of sidewalk slow clearance to all of Toronto’s streets, a service that was previously provided only to suburban areas, where unobstructed sidewalks made municipal slow clearance easy to do. With new snow equipment able to navigate narrow urban sidewalks, Toronto is now finally able to provide universal snow clearance services, a boon for full accessibility.

    As public health restrictions ease and stores and restaurant patios reopen this Friday (supported by the city’s willingness to reallocate road space on streets like Yonge and Danforth), there’s never been a better time to for a walk.