The block-long single-storey shed housing the National Rubber Industries Cawthra Avenue Plant had been built in 1902 for the E.&C. Gurney Company as a boiler and radiator foundry and pattern works. In a snowy view of (Old) Weston Road taken by Toronto’s official photographer Arthur Goss in March, 1914, the southeast corner of the foundry building appears on the left side, and the Grand Trunk Railway’s West Toronto station in the near distance.

When I visited the site on February 27, camera in hand, a realtor’s sign attached to the fence was still advertising +-178,000 square feet of interior space for lease. The sprawling plant had been vacant since the company ceased operations in December 2024, but now its structures were being reduced to sorted piles of mangled wood, brick and metal.

I first became aware of the historic heart of the Junction in 1991, while I was busy documenting the nearby Ontario Stockyards. The Maple Leaf Mills flour mill on Junction Road, dating from 1892, had just been shut down and was awaiting demolition. In August, 1991 I took a view looking south on Cawthra Avenue showing the mill complex with a corner of the National Rubber factory in the foreground.

National Rubber was founded in 1927, and it opened a modern plant and head office on Symington Avenue in 1958. Archival sources, including the City Directory, give no indication of when the Gurney Foundry closed and National Rubber took over the Cawthra Avenue complex. In 1989, its windows were blocked up and its facades were completely re-clad using precast concrete and corrugated metal panels. However, its original brick and timber structure remained visible on the inside.

In 1992, when I obtained permission from the company’s new president Ted Pattendon to photograph the Cawthra Avenue plant, National Rubber had recently taken on a new identity as a “green” industry. Its technology for recycling ground tire rubber called “tire crumb” into a variety of new products was seen as a solution to Ontario’s glut of discarded tires piling up in scrapyards.

Using a combinations of tire crumb and “friction” (uncured waste rubber from tire manufacturing), the company was making moulded rubber parts for Honda, Nissan, GM, Chrysler and Ford. It was also producing commercial products such as playground mats and wheel chocks. (A full list of products from 1993 is attached below).

I was determined to make the most of a fortuitous opportunity to document an industry that is seldom seen in photographs. Between January 1993 and December 1994, I made regular Saturday visits to Cawthra Avenue. The available lighting in the plant, a mixture of sodium vapour and fluorescents, was just bright enough to allow me to freeze motion using ultra-high speed film. For architectural views and portraits, I used a Hasselblad on a tripod. By the end of the project, I had exposed 97 rolls of film.

The unionized workforce at the plant exemplified the ethnic diversity still to be found in Toronto industries dependent on lower-wage immigrant labour. Portuguese Canadians, including bilingual second-generation managers and engineers, made up a majority of employees. In some cases, both parents in a young family worked at the plant, managing child care by taking opposite shifts.

Working in the plant required endurance, especially on humid summer days. The vulcanizing of rubber uses sulfur, and requires high temperatures in a press. The plant interior was often filled with sulfurous smoke, which sometimes escaped through open doors into the surrounding neighbourhood. The effect of smoke lingering in the air can be detected in the altered halftones of many of my images.

My knowledge of labour relations in the plant remained limited, but on the surface they seemed harmonious. Although the company’s management style could be described as paternalistic, my project benefited from good relations between the new president and his employees.

During my project, managers were on a campaign to improve the company’s poor workplace safety record. The machinery that was used to process the uncured rubber could be dangerous. I witnessed the aftermath of one incident in which a worker sustained a painful hand injury in a machine.

As I had done during my previous long-term project at the Wickett and Craig Tannery, I aimed to present the employees as individuals, showing them at work, but also encouraging them to pose for portraits whenever possible. On every visit, my first job was to distribute 8 X 10 inch prints of the photos I had taken on the previous visit.

More than three decades later I have added some footnotes to my documentation of National Rubber Industries, later re-named National Rubber Technologies. In October, 2016, after improvements were made to the Go Transit rail corridor along the plant’s east side, I took a series of architectural photos in colour showing its changed setting.

A second opportunity arose by chance on a hot, humid day in June, 2021. Biking down Cawthra Avenue, I encountered locked-out workers picketing in front of the NRT factory gate. Learning from them that the current owner was threatening to close the plant, I returned the next day to take snapshots of the picket line. The plant didn’t close then, but it only lasted another three years.

As the architectural historian Robert Harbison has observed, while functioning industrial plants can be forbidding, abandoned industrial facilities elicit pathos. This is because, unlike classical ruins, we know they are certain to be destroyed in the name of progress. Even in its abandoned state, the Cawthra Avenue plant, while still standing, continued to represent the Junction’s rich industrial heritage. Its destruction had for me a pathetic finality.

Appendix: National Rubber products

(via NR NATIONAL RUBBER & DESIGN — 0739105C. Trademark Copyright Information, 1993)

Molded, die cut and extruded rubber products, namely wheel chocks, dock bumpers, truck and trailer bumpers, truck splash guards, passenger splash guards, camper flaps, customized splash guards, die cut splash guards, masticated rubber sheet, rubber load bearing pads, rubber door panels, dirt shoe runners, golf mats, golf cart mats, cargo anti-slip pads, electrical insulators, roof walkway pads, playground mats, brake and clutch pedal pads, rubber wheel segments, truck bed mats, bumper pads, rubber insulators, baffles, seals, shields, deflectors, bumper assemblies, splash shields, shock absorbers, bumper rub strips, bumper guards, end caps, deflectors, muffler hangers, insulators, tie straps, mud flaps, fuel tank pads, shims, spacers, shift lever boots, gaskets, air ducts, spring seat assemblies, isolators, distributor cap protectors, crankshaft dampers, and manhole covers, collars and risers.

Photogallery

All photographs by Peter MacCallum

The post The rise and fall of National Rubber appeared first on Spacing Toronto.

ABC Toronto describes itself as “a not-for-profit organization of concerned citizens who believe Toronto must become a highly livable city that is the envy of the world” The organization says it advocates for solutions around congestion, affordability, competitiveness, and community safety.

In a recent video criticizing the University Avenue cycle tracks, ABC Toronto frames the corridor as “the most important hospital corridor in Toronto” and questions why bike lanes were installed there at all. The video strongly implies that cycling infrastructure is interfering with emergency response and asks why the City would conduct a “traffic experiment” near major hospitals.

It is an emotionally effective argument. Ambulances. Hospitals. Loved ones in crisis. Every second counts.

But emotional framing is not the same thing as evidence. Because once you move beyond the rhetoric and examine the history of the corridor, the transportation design itself, and the publicly available data around emergency response times, the argument begins to fall apart.

Let’s walk through the claims one by one.

“This isn’t just any regular street. This is the most important hospital corridor in Toronto.”

That part is true.

University Avenue is one of Toronto’s most significant healthcare corridors, home to multiple major healthcare, education and innovation centres, including Mount Sinai Hospital, SickKids | The Hospital for Sick Children, MaRS Discovery District, and University Health Network’s Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto General Hospital and Toronto Rehab – University Centre

But that context is also precisely why the corridor was redesigned during the pandemic to support more than just private vehicle movement.

In 2020, temporary cycle tracks were installed along University Avenue and Queen’s Park Crescent as part of ActiveTO to improve multi-modal access for essential workers travelling to hospitals and workplaces along the corridor. According to the City of Toronto, the route was specifically intended to provide “multi-modal capacity along the Line 1 subway and as a connection for essential workers to the four hospitals along the corridor.”

The corridor also connects major east-west cycling routes including Bloor, Harbord, College, Richmond, and Adelaide, making it one of the most important north-south links in the downtown cycling network.

Framing the street exclusively as a corridor for cars and ambulances leaves out how thousands of healthcare workers, patients and students actually access the area every day.

“What did the city do? They put bike lanes on it.”

This framing suggests the lanes were introduced recklessly or without planning.

That isn’t what happened.

The University Avenue cycle tracks were introduced during COVID-19 under ActiveTO and later made permanent by City Council in December 2021 following staff review, consultation, and infrastructure upgrades. (IE26.10 – Cycling Network Plan – 2021 Cycling Infrastructure Installation – Fourth Quarter Update and the Future of the 2020 ActiveTO Cycling Network Projects)

The redesign maintained multiple vehicle lanes in each direction, preserved hospital loading access, introduced accessible boarding platforms, added green safety markings at hospital driveways, and converted some parking areas to 24/7 access specifically to support hospital pick-up and drop-off activity. (ActiveTO – Corridor 3: University Avenue/Queens Park – Avenue Road to Adelaide Street (2.3km))

The route was also identified as a priority major city-wide cycling corridor in Toronto’s Cycling Network Plan.

This was not simply “putting bike lanes on a hospital street.” It was a broader redesign of a major corridor intended to support multiple forms of movement safely and efficiently.

“When your loved one is in an ambulance you want every second to count.”

Of course every second matters during a medical emergency. But serious public policy cannot rely on emotional implication alone.

The argument being made here is not merely that traffic exists. It is implying that cycling infrastructure is contributing to delayed emergency care.

That is a claim that requires evidence. And the available evidence points elsewhere.

In June 2024, Toronto’s Auditor General released a report titled Toronto Paramedic Services – Rising Response Times Caused by Staffing Challenges and Pressures in the Healthcare System. The report identified hospital off-load delays, staffing shortages, increasing call volumes, and healthcare system pressures as the primary causes of worsening ambulance response times.

A 2025 City report, Toronto Paramedic Services: Multi-Year Staffing Plan, similarly found that paramedic wait times to transfer patients into emergency departments had increased by 11 per cent since 2019, while periods of “low ambulance availability” had increased by roughly 300 per cent compared to pre-pandemic conditions.

These are systemic healthcare pressures. Not bike lane pressures.

To date, no public evidence has been presented showing that the University Avenue cycle tracks are causing ambulance delays or worsening patient outcomes.

“With response times on the rise, the city needs to do a review, talk to paramedics and put patients first.”

The implication throughout the video is that bike lanes are interfering with emergency response operations. But public evidence supporting that claim has not been presented.

In reporting for CBC News, reporter Rochelle Raveendran examined similar claims made by Premier Doug Ford regarding Toronto bike lanes and emergency vehicle access. One of Ford’s claims stated:

“Talk to our first responders that are pulling their hair out, the fire trucks that can’t get across the road because there’s barriers or there’s bike lanes and they’re backed up. Talk to our police that are trying to get to a call or our paramedics. It’s an absolute disaster, it’s a nightmare.”

But according to the City of Toronto, emergency services themselves had not raised those concerns.

As reported by Raveendran, the City stated in an email to CBC Toronto:

“Emergency services are accustomed to manoeuvring through a variety of road conditions throughout the city on a daily basis and will continue to take the route that provides the fastest response based on the specific conditions at the time of dispatch.”

Raveendran also examined Ford’s specific comments about University Avenue:

“You go down on Hospital Row, University Avenue, paramedics are trying to get someone to the hospital as quickly as possible. They take out a lane of traffic, put bike lanes in there, it’s cut down to one, it’s jammed like crazy.”

Again, the City pushed back directly. According to CBC Toronto, City staff stated that emergency services had not raised issues regarding traffic conditions on University Avenue caused by the bike lanes.

The conversation changes when frustration about congestion becomes an accusation that cycling infrastructure is interfering with emergency medical care. If that claim is going to shape transportation policy, it should be supported by operational evidence from emergency services themselves, not just political rhetoric or emotionally charged assumptions.

“When alternatives like Bay and McCaul exist, there’s no reason to run a traffic experiment here.”

This misunderstands how transportation networks function.

University Avenue is currently the only protected and accessible north-south cycling corridor west of Yonge Street connecting Bloor to Richmond and Adelaide.The route was intentionally designed to connect major east-west corridors including Bloor, Harbord, College, Richmond, and Adelaide while also serving the hospitals, Queen’s Park, the University of Toronto, and downtown employment districts. According to the City of Toronto, the corridor was identified as a priority Major City-Wide Cycling Corridor within the Cycling Network Plan.

Bay Street and McCaul Street are not equivalent substitutes.

Neither corridor offers the same level of protection, accessibility, continuity, or direct hospital access as University Avenue. Cycling infrastructure functions as a network, not as isolated fragments. Telling riders, including healthcare workers, students, patients, and commuters, to simply “use another street” ignores how people actually move through dense urban environments.

The Province’s own evidence during the recent Bill 212 court challenge further complicated the idea that cyclists can simply be diverted onto nearby secondary streets. In Cycle Toronto et al. v. Attorney General of Ontario, Justice Paul Schabas noted there was “uncontradicted evidence that there are very limited alternatives to the target bike lanes,” directly challenging one of the central assumptions behind bike lane removal arguments.

The ruling also referenced provincial briefing materials acknowledging that removing bike lanes “may not have the desired goal of reducing congestion.” Justice Schabas further noted evidence showing that restoring lanes for cars would likely increase safety risks for cyclists while failing to meaningfully improve long-term traffic conditions..

Those findings cut directly against a recurring narrative in Toronto’s transportation debates: that removing cycling infrastructure automatically improves mobility for everyone else.

The evidence increasingly suggests the opposite. Congestion in Toronto is primarily driven by the overwhelming number of private vehicles competing for limited street space, while safe and connected cycling infrastructure gives people additional ways to move through the city without adding another car to already congested roads.

And on a corridor as important as University Avenue, that multimodal flexibility was not an afterthought. It was part of the original design rationale from the beginning.

“There’s no reason…”

There was a reason.

The corridor was redesigned during a global pandemic to support essential workers, improve multimodal access to hospitals, close major gaps in the cycling network, and create safer conditions along one of Toronto’s busiest downtown routes.

Toronto City Council reviewed the project and voted to make it permanent in 2021.

Notably, Councillor Brad Bradford voted in favour of extending the route south to King Street.

That does not mean the project should be beyond criticism. No infrastructure project should be.

But if bike lanes are now being framed as threats to emergency care, the public deserves evidence supporting that claim.

Right now, the available evidence points somewhere else entirely.

Toronto’s worsening ambulance response times are overwhelmingly linked to healthcare system pressures, hospital off-load delays, staffing shortages, and broader congestion across the city.

Reducing that conversation to “bike lanes versus ambulances” may produce compelling political messaging, but it does little to address the actual causes of the problem.

And if we genuinely care about getting patients to hospitals faster, those are probably the problems worth focusing on first.

Photo by Lanrick Bennett

The post The truth about the University Avenue bike lanes appeared first on Spacing Toronto.

The official Fan Festival itself has a daily capacity of 20,000, but with this programming over more than five kilometers, those of us working along the water are wondering how we’ll learn how to host extended waterfront-wide events more often in the future.

One key to the answer may be a site that’s pretty low on most people’s radar right now. It’s a parking lot at Rees Street and Queens Quay, which is set to become a park, but is currently operated by Harbourfront Centre. That space happens to sit right between Harbourfront’s main arts and culture campus and some of the city’s largest attractions: the Rogers Centre, CN Tower, Ripley’s Aquarium and the Metro Toronto Convention Centre are all less than a five-minute walk from the lot.

For the waterfront to be a recurring canvas in support of major events, getting opportunities like Rees right will be critical. If you’ll allow me a Big Lebowski joke, a high-potential space like this may be the rug that really ties the whole waterfront together.

To zoom out a bit, our Waterfront BIA represents the businesses along Queens Quay south of the Gardiner Expressway. However, we increasingly encourage our friends on the water to see the broader ’10 km waterfront-wide opportunity,’ from Exhibition Place and Ontario Place in the west through our central waterfront and right into the massive Port Lands that are just beginning to re-develop.

This connectivity was well-summarized in a report by The Toronto Region Board of Trade in 2023, Ripple Effect, that took an international perspective on waterfront development in Toronto. While it started as a number of great but completely separate entities – Toronto Islands, Harbourfront Centre, Ontario Place – the waterfront is entering a phase where it should be seen as an inter-connected and complimentary ecosystem of attractions.

The Rees Street parking lot has been set aside as a future park area. There was a previous design called ‘Rees Ridge’ selected in a design competition in 2018 alongside the now iconic Love Park. The City and Waterfront Toronto decided to not use the previous design in 2023.

This re-design discussion should allow stakeholders to better consider the utilization of this space as a connected part of the wider waterfront, not just as another standalone park. The previous design was literally a ‘ridge’ that looked to cover up the Gardiner Expressway. But The Bentway’s vision of improving the experience under the highway was far more tangible and will be a complimentary element.

The pandemic also transformed a lot of expectations, roles and relationships around the waterfront. Harbourfront Centre, for example, has become more integrated and collaborative with area stakeholders. It will look to have a significant role with the Rees space once it loses the current parking lot. Just having celebrated their 50th anniversary, Harbourfront should see programming at this site as stepping stone to expand their presence as an anchor partner for arts and culture programming in their next 50 years.

A limiting factor for a future park is that it will be on the north side of Queens Quay, not beside the water and the busy Martin Goodman Trail, which brings bikes and strollers by the thousands.  People are less likely to enjoy just sitting on the eventual Rees park site and relaxing – they’ll do that on the south side, near the water. Consequently, it will need to have multiple diverse and exciting uses to become a prominent and well-used park.

One of the best ideas we’ve heard so far was that it should take advantage of its proximity to the Rogers Centre. If a permanent screen could be there showing Jays games, that would be 162+ days of programming per year. Screens could be free to access for the public and local residents, but also support an attractive vendor to provide food and beverage in a sectioned off area. Not a full ‘Jurassic Park’ sized experience, but more of a community-minded game-viewing area in part of the larger space.

Even more ambitiously, the space at Rees should be protected long-term for a more permanent attraction opportunity. As Gail Lord and Joe Berridge recently wrote, this is the “best location in the central waterfront” and better utilization of it should be seen as an opportunity to attract more permanent cultural buildings. With 100,000 sq. ft., (approximately one-hectare), even one-third or a half the site could house a new permanent attraction while leaving the remaining space flexible for large events or a diverse mix of programming.

If Toronto is going to attract more major events in the future, flexible spaces that can be used for crowds on special occasions will be necessary. For New Year’s Eve fireworks, the city has been encouraging visitors to watch from the other new parks on Queens Quay because even a site like Harbourfront Centre’s main campus can get crowded if 100,000+ people visit at once. To build a truly world-class waterfront, we’ll need to be able to accommodate even more than that number on special occasions. Rees Park with a flexible space design could be one of those ‘gathering spaces’ utilized for the next World Cup scale event, or something more local, like Nuit Blanche.

Another similar-sized temporary open space site is at 50 Queens Quay East Park. With a pickleball court and dog run, it’s great for now and is being held for re-design later. When the waterfront hosts another event in the future that will be watched from around the world – why not a World Expo? – the 10-km wide waterfront will almost certainly be the canvas, and spaces like Rees will be a big part of holding it all together.

Tim Kocur is Executive Director of the Waterfront Business Improvement Area (BIA) in Toronto, and a Board Member of the International Downtowns Association (IDA) and The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery.

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Social prescribing connects people to non-medical sources of health and wellbeing: nature, arts, movement, community, each other. It is having a bit of a global breakout moment. And what I have learned watching social prescribing find its way to the global stage over the past few years is that a social prescription, to truly build wellbeing and belonging, needs two parts that cities consistently get half-right. It needs a place to stay, which urbanists know well. It also needs an invitation, and that part gets far less attention.

I learned this first at home, underneath an expressway. The Bentway, the civic space built beneath the Gardiner, is Toronto’s own piece of reclaimed infrastructure: a place to stay in the shadow of a place for just passing through. My work there with research partners asked a simple question: does a well-designed public space produce connection? We found that the space matters, but also that the space alone is not enough. People felt belonging and wellbeing only when they were explicitly invited in by a named program, a direct message, or a person, and only when there was somewhere to actually sit and stay once they arrived. That is one reason it stung so much when the City proposed to charge for access to The Bentway during this summer’s FIFA fan festival: it felt like a carefully built invitation being revoked from anyone who couldn’t pay.

I carried that two-part lesson into two other cities this spring.

In New York, where I have been living this year as Canada’s Harkness Fellow, I mentored a group of High Line Fellows: high-school-aged young people who are paid to spend one afternoon every week engaging with public space and civic life. The High Line is another reclaimed space for passing through, now turned into an elevated garden park. But the fellows told me that many of their own families, including families living in the High Line’s neighbourhoods, do not feel the park is really for them. The fellows named what had changed that for themselves, and what made the park their medicine: someone offered them time, gave them mentorship, and paid a meaningful wage for their labour. They had been invited in, and the invitation came with resources.

And in Madrid, beyond the conference hall, I walked the Madrid Río, another place to stay reclaimed from a place for passing through. For decades a ring-road expressway ran along the Manzanares River, walling off the waterway much as the Don Valley Parkway (DVP) walls off the Don. Then Madrid made a big decision: to bury the motorway and reclaim the river and its banks. It took years, an enormous public budget, and a sustained municipal will, and today it is a thriving public park programmed for staying, with cultural activities, markets, and a water-feature “beach” that gives land-locked citizens a hot-summer place to stay.

Back in Toronto, the need for meaningful, equitable invitation into public spaces has been reinforced by ongoing work led by my colleague Dr. Nadha Hassen with Park People. Not everyone feels welcome in our parks and public spaces, even when they are designed to be welcoming. What makes the difference is programming and a genuine invitation, designed by and for the people who use these spaces.

Global cities are getting better at the architecture: at burying the road, opening the river, making a room beneath a highway. We are less practised at the art and science of invitation: paying people for their presence, giving them time and mentorship, sending the message that this place has a seat with their name on it. We still tend to see city-building and health as if they were entirely separate activities: urbanists reclaim the space, and the health system treats the loneliness and the chronic disease that the space could have helped prevent.

Social prescribing is one of the few practices that really brings the two together. It is an invitation, a way of walking a person across a threshold they would not otherwise cross — by a link worker, a peer, a paid young fellow who knows the neighbourhood — so they find, on the other side, somewhere to stay. This is the kind of work that turns a city of neighbourhoods into a city of active neighbouring.

Imagine if every major public project in Toronto arrived with an invitation budget attached: money for the link workers, the youth fellows, the programming and outreach that turn a built place into a space of belonging and care. We already know how to do this: The Bentway is the proof, and so are those already doing social prescribing across the city, from hospitals to community health centres. What we need is to treat the invitation as core infrastructure rather than a nice addition once the ribbon is cut.

The forces that frighten us right now can feel enormous and untouchable: climate, geopolitics, even our national government’s retreat from social infrastructure in favour of the physical kind. But cities still belong to us, at a scale where something we can shape still feels within reach. So here is what I told that room in Madrid: with leadership from city hall and genuine responsiveness to everyday people – the kind the FIFA fan fest episode this spring tested – Toronto can teach the world not just how to reclaim a space, but how to invite people to stay.

Photo by Kate Mulligan

The post OP-ED: Invitation as Urban Policy appeared first on Spacing Toronto.

E-bikes are good for our cities. They offer reliable transportation for people of all ages and abilities. They are quiet and energy efficient. They don’t emit harmful air and climate pollutants. And as fuel prices rise, they allow commuters to bypass the anxiety of the gas pump. The Ontario Ministry of Transportation’s proposals to modernize rules governing e-bikes are therefore timely. In fact, the changes would facilitate the continuing expansion of e-bike usage by addressing legitimate concerns about the weight, power, and speed of some e-bikes models.

In theory, the Highway Traffic Act (HTA) distinguishes e-bikes as between those that are more like pedal bicycles and others that are more like “motor vehicles.” The latter require the driver to obtain a licence, insurance, and registration. In practice, however, the lines have become too blurred — and the range of e-bike options too broad — to provide a clear distinction.

Some retailers tout anything with an electric motor and two wheels as an e-bike that’s supposedly exempt from HTA motor vehicle rules. Ambiguity in the law means that enforcement is almost non-existent. The updated rules and definitions provide much-needed clarity.

Under the provincial proposals, moped- and motorcycle-style e-bikes will clearly fall under the motor vehicle category. Other e-bikes that are limited to 32km/h and a motor capacity of 500 watts will fall under a new Class 1 or 2 that remain exempt from motor vehicle requirements. This classification system resembles ones in force in many U.S. and European jurisdictions.

Parents with cargo e-bikes will appreciate that carrying children under age 16 would become legal, provided the e-bike is designed for this purpose.

Ontario’s proposed Class 2 includes e-bikes that can be operated by throttle (or accelerator) alone. The throttle undermines the notion of a bicycle as requiring some physical exertion. This proposal is sometimes rationalized as accommodating individuals with disabilities, but creating a rule grounded in an exception is a questionable proposition. (Admittedly, telling e-bikes apart based on whether they have a throttle is difficult.) How we resolve the issue will depend on whether we prefer consistency with the most common U.S. approach or the European one. The U.S. classification framework allows for a throttle while European jurisdictions often have a baseline requiring some physical input by the rider, with an “assist” from the motor. (Approval can nonetheless be sought for other e-bike types.)

The maximum 120kg weight and 500W motor power for Class 2 e-bikes are curiously high. Consider, for example, that under current rules even cargo e-bikes are limited to 55kg. The public consultation that ends on June 7 will allow for adjustments.

The proposed rules do not cover kick e-scooters. Aside from the fact that these scooters (where the rider stands on a platform) and e-bikes have two wheels, there is little reason to lump them together.

It’s likely that most riders of moped-style e-bikes will switch to Class 1 and 2 e-bikes to avoid the obligation to obtain a licence, registration, and insurance.

The potential impact of the new rules on food couriers, for whom moped-style e-bikes are common, will require careful assessment. A one-year education and awareness phase-in period is a good start. Depending on their quality, many mopeds used heavily for year-round delivery will have relatively short lifespans. In addition, many e-bikes on the road today are already captured by HTA rules for motor vehicles. A recent review by the Ottawa Coroner into five e-bike deaths found that all of the vehicles involved exceeded the prevailing HTA speed capability or weight limits. The rider, however, lacked the required class of licence and associated testing.

In order to enhance the effectiveness of the new rules, the province should grant municipalities the authority to licence food delivery companies. This could ensure that these corporations bear more of the burden now being foisted on the public (and couriers) for e-bikes that are in poor condition, improperly operated, or reliant on uncertified batteries that create fire risks. In terms of e-bikes on the market, government oversight must also impose consequences for misrepresenting e-bikes as Class 1 and 2 on retailers, not consumers.

E-bikes make valuable contributions to the fight against traffic congestion, poor air quality, and climate change. The proposed rules offer a path forward for the ongoing — and welcome — expansion of safe e-bike usage.

Muskan Fatima recently completed a University of Windsor Faculty of Law Externship focused on e-bike law reform. Albert Koehl is an environmental lawyer, author of Wheeling through Toronto, and Executive Director of Community Bikeways.

Photo by Albert Koehl

The post Modernizing e-bike rules appeared first on Spacing Toronto.

In well under a year, which is like the blink of an eye in City of Toronto time, a plan to pedestrianize that portion of Church Street bisecting The Village went from being the subject of a master’s thesis to an election year pilot project, with scarcely a pothole on its journey to yes.

The prospect of closing Church to cars had the backing of The 519, the local BIA, the local city councillor Chris Moise and about 3,500 signatures, the CBC reported — sufficient for the plan to sail through council earlier this month. Brad Bradford, who is aspiring to hoover-up the city’s no-fun voting block in this fall’s mayoral race, made sure to add an escape clause to the council decision, to the effect that staff could shutter the whole thing if mayhem ensues.

It’s worth parsing the official council decision to acknowledge what was presented to the politicians and the public, and what wasn’t.

Moise’s motion, which had the blessing of the Toronto and East York Community council, runs to 230 words, which is to City staff reports as a post on X is to War and Peace. It is, perhaps most conspicuously, a pilot project — in other words, a politically liminal condition, which happens to be what Toronto council calls policy when it doesn’t actually want to make policy.

During the debate, councillors were also presented with a four-page memo from the Transportation Service’s street permits director, which begins by stating that the civil service didn’t have enough information about the proposal to properly vet it. Scandal!

The memo goes on to note that in the absence of a formal “pedestrianization policy or program,” the closure — from mid-June to late August — will be treated like an “event” for the purposes of processing documents. It then dutifully itemizes all the other blockages in the arteries of downtown Toronto, and has not a single thing to say about garden-variety excuses such as road re-construction on Church, the need to eventually replace sub-surface infrastructure, the coordination of the utilities doing the work, etc., etc., etc.

You don’t need to squint too hard to recognize this decision as (i) locally popular; (ii) politically well-supported; (iii) timely. Did I mention it is an election year?

But, whatever. Spring’s here. Let’s not get hung up on the sausage-making and instead applaud the City of Toronto for joining, however tentatively, the rest of the urban universe. (To date, our only other pedestrianization zones include Kensington Sundays and Market Street.)

At the risk of sounding like an ingrate, I think it’s important to point out that the easily approved Church Street pedestrianization thoroughly puts the lie to the myriad excuses the city has advanced in the past to justify not proceeding with pedestrianization projects elsewhere, or, in the alternative, proceeding with them at a pace that would make a glacier blush.

After all, we’re in the midst of the latest consultation on the lower Yonge Street pedestrianization — Queen to College — which is not actually a full-throated pedestrianization, and is conditioned, mysteriously, to events that will occur at some point in the middle distance, like the opening of the Ontario Line’s Queen Station.

YongeTOmorrow indeed. Forever tomorrow.

Likewise the John Street (Cultural) Corridor, the idea for which can be traced all the way back to Barack Obama’s presidency. A quasi-pedestrianized stretch from King to Grange Park, this scheme continues to go nowhere, trapped as it is in the hamster wheel of construction coordination and endless consultations. The period during which the city has been farting around with the John Street plan has seen a huge amount of new density land in that very area, rendering it ideally suited for (i) not cars; (ii) pedestrians. Suffice it to say, there are lot of cars.

Montreal, as everyone knows, has been the Canadian trailblazer, with a summer pedestrianization strategy that was born during the pandemic and shows no signs of flagging. There, the city puts out calls for proposals and then partners with local business associations; there’s even funding! Two years ago, I asked Barbara Gray, then the head of transportation services, about lessons learned and she replied that just closing a street won’t necessarily produce salutary results. To make such projects works, she implied, the city, local businesses and the surrounding community all need to be singing from the same hymn book.

Yes, all that’s true for Church. But there’s also something conveniently passive about this stance. If the planets don’t align, the works, transportation services and planning departments will leap into the breach with infrastructure projects and consultations extending to the horizon.

What’s more, it provides way too much cover for recalcitrant BIAs. Can anyone think of an area more specifically conducive to pedestrianization than Yorkville? It would be jammed all spring, summer and fall. Lots and lots of money would be spent and made. No thoroughfares would be harmed. Transit could literally not be more convenient. The only noses out of joint would be those guys in the muscle cars who thrum their way up and down Cumberland.

Bloor-Yorkville BIA moved heaven and earth to get the city to pave the sidewalks in black granite. Closing streets to cars, not a word. Dianne Saxe, the local councillor, also not a word.

I guess the point I’d make here is that I’d like to see more local politicians do what Moise did, which is seize on a proposal, get the political pieces to fit together, make an argument to city officials that it’s possible to execute these kinds of seasonal projects without unduly impairing major road-reconstruction work, etc., and then go for it.

Church, in the end, proves council can actually get behind a street closure proposal that won’t cause massive disruptions, but will cause more Torontonians to enjoy their city for more of the year. Something to remember the next time the no-birds start chirping.

photo by Brian Carson (cc)

The post Church Street is being pedestrianized — that wasn’t so hard, was it? appeared first on Spacing Toronto.

The granite-hard conventional wisdom about the looming U.S. mid-term congressional elections is that they’ll be a giant referendum on Donald Trump’s insane presidency, with the potential for swinging the House of Representatives and maybe even the Senate.

In a hundred different ways, the looming municipal elections — both here and elsewhere in the province — must be seen as our version of the mid-terms: an opportunity for voters to use their outside voices to respond to the increasingly unhinged ways in which the Ford government is laying waste to public infrastructure and any semblance of municipal autonomy.

From where I sit, the mayoral candidate who decides to strategically side-step the usual platitudes of local electioneering and instead take direct aim at King Doug will be rewarded with not just a victory, but also a political platform to push back on the Tories’ future excesses. The candidate who opts to defend, either explicitly or tacitly, Ford’s record will be telegraphing voters that (s)he will be prepared to capitulate when Queen’s Park plans its next drive-by.

It will be a choice, both for Torontonians and the candidates themselves.

Even the most checked-out voters know some of what’s on the list: from the previous terms: Ontario Place, the Science Centre, the Greenbelt, 407, cuts to the size of council. From the current term, the attempted island airport takeover, the absurd jet fantasy, the endless concessions to condo developers, the knee-capping of school board governance, Metrolinx’s incompetence, etc.

Then, a couple of very recent examples: the provisions of Bill 98, which erase years of climate-oriented planning and building code reforms, including the Toronto Green Standard, while allowing the province to commandeer vast swaths of local transit agency decision-making authority (routes, fares, transfers, etc.).

This omnibus law, a.k.a. the “Building Homes and Improving Transportation Infrastructure Act,” allows the province to “apportion” revenues among operators, including from the TTC to other GTA agencies — a robbing Peter to pay Paul scheme if there ever was one.

There are, however, both more and less effective ways of bringing this set of messages to voters. Case in point, a member’s motion, moved in late March by Don Valley West’s Rachel Chernos-Lin and Etobicoke Lakeshore’s Amber Morley. It calls on council to express its “support” for local school board trustees and then “request” Queen’s Park — which is slashing trustees’ seats and responsibilities while taking over boards — to “initiate a robust, province-wide consultation on school board governance models before considering any decision that would alter the governance role of trustees.” The motion got flipped over to executive committee.

This is all nice and well, but utterly ineffective, as the submissive wording indicates. There are plenty of ex-trustees on council, including Chernos-Lin (a former Toronto District School Board chair), Mayor Olivia Chow, budget chair Shelley Carroll, deputy mayor Ausma Malik, Toronto St. Paul’s Josh Matlow, Toronto Danforth’s Paula Fletcher, and Scarborough South-West’s Parthi Kandavel.

Every single one of these politicians understands, in theory, the importance of the school trustee’s position, and I, for one, would like them to be yelling a lot louder about the Ford government’s decision to slash the board’s ranks by half. Calling for a “robust province-wide consultation” hardly signals faith in the office. Better to dance with the one that brung ya.

I feel certain the island airport will soak up a decent amount of rhetorical space in this race, as it should, but the mayoral candidates should be reminding voters at every turn that this headline-grabbing move is part of a larger program that is shockingly imperial in both tone and substance. Ford is taking over chunks of the city, rescinding long-established operational and legislative powers, neutering local government institutions, rewarding cronies, and on and on.

We can all pretend that this coming election will be about congestion and property taxes and whether or not certain neighbourhoods are especially vulnerable to car thefts and home invasion. Brad Bradford will blame Olivia Chow for all the usual stuff, and Chow, in turn, will tout her achievements, such as accelerating the construction on Lakeshore to co-op housing.

Yet unlike any municipal election in recent or even not-so-recent memory, this contest is about the Shrek in the room, and the Ford government’s blinkered efforts to undermine the political and regulatory authority of the jurisdictions unlucky enough to live under his thumb.

I’m reminded of the way Mike Harris spent the first three years of his premiership upending just about everything in local government, with measures that ran the gamut from slashing transit funding to downloading social service costs to amalgamation to school board upheaval. Three decades on, the municipal and school board sectors are still extricating themselves from some of those quote-unquote reforms — reforms, I should add, that paved the way for the massive defeat of the Harris/Ernie Eves government in 2003.

The city and the school boards definitely didn’t win all those battles, but at least they fought. Ask Carroll and Fletcher and Chow: they were there, and they pushed back.

Unlike city council’s current supine stance.

To come full circle here, the real opponent in this fall’s election is Ford and his cabal at Queen’s Park. Victory, I’ll predict, will go to whomever finds a way to tell both voters and the Tories to expect a scrappier form of governance from 100 Queen West.

This shouldn’t be, and can’t be, a business-as-usual race.

photo by Miles Brathwaite (cc)

The post LORINC: Mayoral candidates need to take on King Doug appeared first on Spacing Toronto.

The city acknowledges that pedestrian volumes will be critically unsafe by 2041, as the population rises and the ratio of residents commuting via transit, bike, or walking increases. According to 2021 census data, the M5G and M5B postal codes, the ones on either side of Yonge Street that range from College/Carlton Streets all the way down to Queen Street, consisted of 20.7% and 30.3% of commuters going to work by public transit respectively and 55.4% and 37.0% doing so by walking respectively; a majority of commuters here are, at some point, pedestrians. For years, tourists, residents, and Toronto Metropolitan University students alike have all had to withstand shoulder to shoulder crowds along the very narrow sidewalks, while cyclists would be crazy to try biking here since every single aspect of the road encourages their demise. I am quite frankly embarrassed that this is one of Toronto’s most famous tourist attractions: Little Canada on the northeast corner, Sankofa Square on the southeast, and the Eaton Centre on the southwest … and it looks like this? Especially jarring as we are expected to welcome World Cup fans from countries that have addressed this systemic power imbalance by creating beautiful pedestrian spaces of their own.

Thankfully though, the city is, albeit slowly, progressing on YongeTOmorrow, the grand redesign of Yonge Street timed to coincide with intrusive watermain work. I went to the open house on April 21, and the other people who went reiterated the same concerns I have: that a redesign must prioritise pedestrian access, safety, and movement. One poster said that as of current conditions, 4,100 pedestrians and 175 cyclists use Yonge Street per hour during peak hours, but only 450 motor vehicles (9.5% of non-TTC transportation modes). Every single poster and presentation slide advertised something the redesign would focus on to advance those three goals, like preventing hostile vehicle attacks, considering turning restrictions, installing a crosswalk between McGill Street and College Park, and enforcing slower speeds with engineering interventions – all good things in isolation. Everything about the presentation alluded to pedestrianization, except the road design proposed.

The proposal is set to only remove one lane of mixed traffic each way on Yonge Street from College/Carlton Streets to Queen Street. This lane would instead be reallocated to additional sidewalk space and a zone for greenery and restaurant patios. Between Gerrard and College/Carlton Streets, there is also room available to fit in cycle tracks.

Pedestrianization was the focus of attendees’ questions and comments. The several-metre-long map of changes on Yonge Street had sticky notes strewn about saying that cars do not belong here, that this would be a wasted opportunity, and that the current conditions would not be solved by the proposed changes: “I wish that it was fully pedestrianized. As a TMU student, there are so many times I wish there were places to take a calm walk after classes”; “cars don’t shop; people do”; “be bold!”; “need ped only space!!!”; and sticky notes spelling out P E D E S T R I A N going down the length of the street were just some of the almost-cries for change, meaningful change.

One attendee asked whether they took best practices and data from successful pedestrian-only spaces abroad when making their design. Staff members present from O2 and Parsons, the two contracted consultancy firms, stated firmly that yes, they have looked at hundreds upon hundreds of them. I am curious to know which ones inspired this particular design, since time after time, pedestrian-only areas are shown to benefit users and abutting businesses, while creating the social, economic, and cultural production necessary to build healthy communities.

In New York City, for example, the southern section of Broadway between 45^th and 47^th streets had 89% of its road space allocated to cars and 11% shared amongst pedestrians, street furniture, vendors, and fire hydrants, despite pedestrians outnumbering vehicles by four and a half times. In 2009, after this section was closed to vehicles, Times Square grew in area and real estate values increased from $2 billion in 1992 to $5.6 billion in 2012. User surveys found higher satisfaction with the space, residents were shopping there more, and nearby office workers ate out for lunch more often. The entirety of Broadway had 137% more collisions than the average New York avenue, but after pedestrianization of that small southern leg, collisions dropped avenue-wide by 63% and pedestrian injuries were reduced by 35%.

We could also look to more recent examples like Montreal, which pedestrianised their Gay Village (rue Sainte-Catherine Est) from rue Berri to ave Papineau during the summers, the equivalent of three subway stations in length. It was so successful, the street will be permanently redesigned to be pedestrian-only year-round in addition its replication on another section of rue Sainte-Catherine on the west side of downtown from rue Peel to rue Saint-Marc. How about Pike Place Market in Seattle, where closing access to cars in 2025 resulted in 6.5% more sales for tenants as compared to 2024 (8.3% when comparing May-September), 145,000 additional visits year-over-year from 127,000 additional visitors, and users reported preferring the vehicle restrictions over not.

Other attendees brought up the recent step forward in implementing seasonal pedestrianization of Church Street in a several-months-long collaboration between Rodney Chan and Councillor Chris Moise, who was present at the meeting. Moise agreed that pedestrianization is key for Yonge Street just as it is for Church Street. The city, in contrast, seem more apprehensive, preferring to wait for the data from Church Street as a pilot project to see what can be transferred over to Yonge Street, if anything. Church Street would not even officially be a pedestrian street since the City has no policy regarding creating one. By loophole, it would technically be a two-month-long street festival with the associated permit fees waived.

All of this speaks to Toronto’s tendency to reinvent the wheel, but instead of a circle it is just a shape with seventy-two flat sides. The data is there from cities all over the world that have done the work decades ago of seeing the problem, conducting meaningful consultations, and implementing solutions. Amsterdam has a plethora of pedestrian-priority or pedestrian-only streets while retaining access for local residents, deliveries, and trams; Oslo has turned its city centre into a car free zone; and Barcelona has an entire grid of pedestrian streets staggered with the grid of car streets. These three were not always pedestrian-friendly either, orientating life around the car and dismantling the urban fabric for highways and parking lots just as North America did. Making equitable decisions in transportation planning such as pedestrianization, especially for the most used part of one of the longest streets in the world, is not revolutionary, but exceptionality has always been a part of Toronto’s planning ontology.

Continuing to allow unfettered vehicle access will not solve my daily problems with the area. The psychology of the proposed design would tell drivers that they are still welcome here to the detriment of pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users. No engineering interventions exist that would prevent drivers from trying to block the roadway, make illegal turns, speed, or threaten the lives of other road users for personal benefit, because the very existence of cars in this space is conducive to these behaviours. In an ideal world, Yonge Street from College/Carlton Streets to Queen Street would be solely for pedestrians, cyclists, and users of the 97 Yonge bus, while simultaneously the perpendicular Dundas Street from Bay Street to Church Street should also be solely for pedestrians, cyclists, and users of the 505 Dundas streetcar. Other cities allow for multimodal mingling with great success. Retractable bollards or arms could also permit access to deliveries, emergency vehicles, and transit vehicles via FOB or transponder as is done elsewhere without issue. Food trucks, for which permit restrictions were recently relaxed, could be welcomed onto the street(s). Space could be used for recreational installations, art pieces, or hold functional furniture like picnic tables/lounge chairs. Businesses would see a permanent influx of visitors.

I include Dundas Street because the discrepancy between space and modal volumes applies to a whole zone of downtown, not just one street. When Drake used the parking lot at Dundas and Bond Streets, a couple blocks east of Yonge Street, to promote his new album with a massive block of ice containing the release date hidden inside, people came out in droves from all over the Greater Toronto Area to a space that is not really meant to handle the extra traffic and pedestrian volumes. The whole area could be conducive to events and enjoyment like this by aligning predominate space with predominate use.

Construction on Yonge Street is set to begin in 2030 or later, likely to coincide with completion of the Ontario Line (emphasis on the later part). The design is simply a question of whether we as a city are more interested in creating enjoyable spaces for everyone or only for those in a car. Whether roads are for transiting the most amount of people in the most efficient way or for the sole purpose of moving and storing as many cars as possible. Yonge Street deserves pedestrianization.

Shane Gates is a recent graduate with a BA in human geography and urban planning. He is an advocate for more equitable decisions in planning and transportation policy. He is most active on Bluesky at shanegates.ca.

Photos by Shane Gates

The post OP-ED: Yonge Street deserves pedestrianization appeared first on Spacing Toronto.

Let’s shift the focus towards completing the gaps within our trail network.

One trail system Community Bikeways is focused on is the 72 km Loop Trail consisting of the Martin Goodman, Humber River, Finch Hydro Corridor, and Don River trails. On Sunday, April 19, about fifty people biked the loop to enjoy the natural scenery, explore the trail gaps, and advocate for the completion of the circuit. The below map shows the Loop Trail marked in blue, the gaps marked in red, and temporarily closed trails marked in orange.

The Mid Humber Gap is arguably the most contentious gap which would require expropriating golf course lands; a process expected to take years. The short Weston Road gap was approved by City Council in December and is tied to road resurfacing expected this year or next, while the multi-use path on Finch Avenue West from Weston to Arrow Roads could start construction in Spring 2027. The Finch Hydro Corridor gap near Yonge Street was subject to Transform Yonge which itself is paused due to provincial legislation. Meanwhile, G Ross Lord Park – the second most dangerous gap after the Mid Humber Gap – is not expected to be addressed anytime soon.

In Scarborough, The Meadoway has seen significant progress over the past few years with the Midland Avenue to Marcos Boulevard stretch being done last fall, while the almost completed East Don Trail Phase 1 will make accessing The Meadoway from downtown (and vice versa) a lot easier. The Bermondsey Road to Eglinton Avenue stretch is now expected to start construction in Spring 2027 while design and planning work is underway for the Neilson Road to Military Trail and Pan Am Drive to Conlins Road stretches. The only major gap remaining is from Kennedy Road to Arsandco Park which could take a while given the need to co-ordinate with Metrolinx to install a new bridge across the Stouffville GO line.

The West Scarborough Rail Trail (WSRT) from Warden to Kennedy Stations has been the subject to community advocacy for at least fifty years with Misha Perozak and the Scarborough Junction Community spearheading the latest efforts. They expressed concern that the TTC’s proposal to use the GECO rail bridge for a pocket track could ultimately kill the project. The Gus Harris Trail goes through Warden Woods from Warden station to Pharmacy Avenue, but the Dentonia Golf Course is blocking the possibility of establishing a connection between the Taylor Creek and Gus Harris Trails (and ultimately the WSRT and The Meadoway).

During the 2022 election campaign, then mayoral candidate Gil Penalosa proposed a larger 100 km Green Loop to include Scarborough and Etobicoke in the ravine network. Completing the Scarborough portion – which I would call the Scarborough Loop – would involve completing the Meadoway, as well as extending the Finch Hydro Corridor east from Middlefield Road to Morningside Avenue and west from Pharmacy to Pineway Boulevard. A feasibility study was supposed to be in the works for the western extension, while the 2025-27 bike plan called for a study along Finch Avenue East to complete the gap (which itself could be at risk). The Don River Trails would form the western portion of the Scarborough Loop.

The Etobicoke Greenway from Kipling Station to the 427-401 interchange is already under construction and the Humber Pearson Hydro Corridor from the Humber River Trail southwest to Kipling Avenue is called for in the 2025-27 bike plan. However, it could be challenging to connect these two trails given the need to cross the Kitchener GO line and two 400-series highways.

With less than six months until the election and nominations recently opened, let’s ask candidates for public office to complete the gaps within the existing trail network. Not just by filling gaps in the Loop Trail, but also completing The Meadoway, the West Scarborough Rail Trail, the Finch Hydro Corridor, and eventually the Humber Pearson Hydro Corridor.

Robert Zaichkowski is an accountant, long-time road safety advocate, and author of the Two Wheeled Politics blog.

Photo by Robert Zaichkowski

The post A Different Kind of Cycling Campaign appeared first on Spacing Toronto.

The chief obstacle to expanding Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport is geography – the tiny size of the airport and its location on an island unconnected by a fixed link to the mainland. If there were ever a collision between two jets, the ferry lacks the capacity to get enough first-responders and their vehicles to Toronto Island to rapidly evacuate the injured to trauma hospitals. Ice-buildup has in the past shut down the ferry. Yes, there is a pedestrian tunnel, but you can’t drive a fire truck or ambulance through it.

Billy Bishop occupies 85 hectares (210 acres), just a third the area of Midway Airport in Chicago, which Doug Ford uses as his comparison for promoting jets. The premier neglects to mention that Midway is 14 km inland from Lake Michigan. The more apt comparison is Meigs Field, Chicago’s former airport on Lake Michigan, which Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley bulldozed in 2003, converting the land to a waterfront park.

The 2015 Oliver Wyman study commissioned for Air Canada concluded that there is not enough space between the current air terminal and the runway at Billy Bishop to dock jets. Consequently, the new runway would have to be located further south and new hangars and infrastructure would have to be located at the southern end of the airport lands to accommodate the hoped-for user increase from two million to 10 million passengers per year.

This particular move could eliminate Hanlan’s Point ferry dock and much of Hanlan’s Point Beach. it may also explain why Ontario Bill 110, the Building Billy Bishop Airport Act, cryptically lists property information numbers (PINs) of blocks of land to be expropriated that include all of the Toronto Islands. To date, Ford and his government have not released a plan for the airport expansion, nor explained why all this parkland is targeted for potential expropriation in the legislation. Ford and his ministers have also issued contradictory statements about the future of Little Norway Park on the mainland.

The Oliver Wyman study recommends building a tunnel under the runway to avoid a LaGuardia-type collision, such as the one earlier this spring involving an Air Canada jet and a firetruck. Given that the island airport is barely above the water table and located on what was a series of sandbars, a vehicle tunnel and runway expansion would be extremely expensive. To accommodate jets, approach landing lights would have to be installed in Toronto Harbour, extending east for 720 metres and on the western side of Toronto Island to Ontario Place. The lights and the huge marine exclusion zone around them will severely impact the navigation of ferries and pleasure craft.

A secret environmental assessment found that allowing jets will increase air pollution, raising the risk of heart disease, lung cancer and respiratory tract tumours for residents living near the airport. The Toronto Port Authority (TPA) commissioned AECOM Canada Ltd. to conduct the EA in 2017, but it only became public on March 11, 2026 as the result of a freedom of information request from No Jets T.O. (The TPA also withheld from the public an environmental assessment of options for runway end safety areas, an aviation safety standard mandated by Transport Canada to prevent aircraft from overshooting runways.)

The study found that increased sound levels may lower property values and interfere with residents’ sleep. While a new generation of regional jets may be quieter than conventional jets, its performance will be mitigated by the increased number of flights as well as these jets’ longer and lower approaches and takeoffs.

The report concluded that extending the runway will reduce water circulation through the Western Channel, raising pollution levels and harming aquatic life. The report noted that adding a large volume of fill into Lake Ontario will destroy fish habitat and spawning beds and reduce the volume of nutrients fish feed on. Most townships in Ontario make it illegal to dump fill into lakes because it only takes one contaminated load to add toxic chemicals into a freshwater lake. Even with the installation of jet blast walls at both the ends and the sides of the extended runways, the report warned that jet exhaust blast poses a high risk of capsizing canoes, paddleboards and kayaks in Toronto Harbour.

Billy Bishop Airport is not a “gold mine” on Toronto’s waterfront, as Ford would have it. The real gold mine is Toronto’s extraordinary geography.

Toronto’s protected harbour and necklace of offshore islands attracts visitors and delights Torontonians. National Geographic, Michelin, and Trip Advisor all rate the ferry excursion to Toronto Islands as one of the top ten things to do when visiting Toronto. National Geographic further describes the islands as “a pastoral archipelago” and highlights the quaint cottages and lush gardens on Ward’s and Algonquin, the only two inhabited islands.

While Ford describes Billy Bishop Airport as a “gold mine” to provide access to Toronto for business travellers and tourists, he hasn’t acknowledged that the parks along Toronto’s waterfront, the harbour, and offshore islands are among its top attractions for both visitors and local residents. According to former Toronto mayor David Crombie, who led the Royal Commission on the Future of the Toronto Waterfront (1988-1992), Toronto’s waterfront parks attract 18 million visitors annually and contribute $13 billion per year to Ontario’s gross domestic product (GDP).

Expanding Toronto Island Airport for jets will do irrevocable damage to this geographical treasure, which all three orders of government have invested millions of taxpayer dollars in restoring, most recently through re-naturalizing the mouth of the Don River and thus allowing wetlands to filter and clean the river’s discharge into the harbour.

By advocating for jets at Billy Bishop Airport, the Government of Ontario is undercutting recent investments in developing parks along the Toronto waterfront and promoting new housing. All levels of government invested $2.5 billion to naturalize the mouth of the Don River and reduce the risk of flooding so new land is available for housing and parks. What’s more, on March 30, 2026, the federal government, Province of Ontario, and City of Toronto agreed to provide $1 billion each to build the Waterfront East light rail transit line to connect Union Station to the new communities to be built in the Portlands.

The TPA is contesting the City of Toronto’s plans to build 40-60-storey apartment towers on Ookwemin Minising (formerly Villiers Island) at the Ontario Land Tribunal because it contends that building higher than 30 storeys will interfere with the flight paths of jets landing and taking off from Billy Bishop Airport.

Disallowing apartment towers higher than 30 storeys will reduce the density of the new neighbourhoods, making each unit more expensive. This move contradicts Ford’s and Prime Minister Mark Carney’s agenda to build more affordable housing in Toronto. Waterfront Toronto, a federal-provincial-municipal non-profit agency, was created in 2001 to coordinate the revitalization of the city’s waterfront. The Ford government and the TPA have refused to coordinate new developments with that agency, resulting in haphazard and contradictory planning and design.

Unlike Doug Ford, most Torontonians don’t own a cottage. The beaches, picnic tables, boardwalks, and cafés on Toronto Islands offer families a chance to escape the city heat at the height of summer and enjoy the cottage experience only a 15-minute ferry ride from downtown.

I have canoed through the Toronto Islands archipelago, and marvelled at the blue herons patiently fishing and the majestic willows overhanging the quiet waterways. A few years ago, my wife and I stayed at a bed and breakfast on Algonquin Island and watched the sunset over the Toronto skyline from a picnic table on the shore. Afterwards, we heard music wafting through the trees, and wandered over to the Island Café, a community-owned restaurant, for a folk concert. In the morning our host, an artist, dropped off a basket of freshly baked muffins, berries and yoghurt for breakfast. It was an enchanting experience only 15 minutes by water from Canada’s largest metropolis.

I asked Doug Ford’s spokesperson if the premier has ever visited the Toronto Islands. She did not respond.

Ian Darragh was a former editor-in-chief, Canadian Geographic magazine, and feature writer for National Geographic.

The post Jet Dreams on Toronto Island (Part 2) appeared first on Spacing Toronto.

Neither the province nor the Toronto Port Authority have provided an estimate of the capital cost, nor the full environmental impact of extending the runway for jets. Neither have they provided a business case that there is pent-up passenger demand. In fact, Billy Bishop has not yet returned to its pre-Covid passenger levels of 2.8 million in 2018 and 2.77 million in 2019. In 2025, Billy Bishop served 1.75 million passengers. And both Pearson and Billy Bishop are facing competition. A federal government study predicts that electrified high-speed rail will lure 2.3 million passengers per year from planes to trains when it becomes operational.

Ford and other proponents of jets say expanding Billy Bishop will generate $140 billion in economic activity and result in lower airfares by offering competition to Pearson. But no evidence has been provided to back up these claims. Since Porter Airlines and Air Canada both fly out of both Pearson and Billy Bishop, they have no incentive to lower ticket prices. The only factor that would reduce prices is if a third airline starting flying out of Billy Bishop, and there is no evidence of that happening.

A 2015 study by aviation consultant Oliver Wyman for Air Canada concluded that the $1 billion in infrastructure upgrades (probably more than $2 billion in 2026) required to allow jets to land at Billy Bishop would make the airport economically unsustainable.

In fact, Billy Bishop has been losing money for years, which is why Porter sold its terminal at Billy Bishop in 2015 for about $750 million to Nieuport Aviation Infrastructure Partners. Nieuport is a private company owned by unlisted institutional investors and advised by J.P. Morgan, an American investment firm.

After the Covid pandemic shutdown air travel, Porter announced plans to lease a fleet of jets and move some of its operations to Pearson. It began using Ottawa airport as a base for  maintenance. Nieuport lost business from a major client and sued Porter for unpaid fees. The lawsuit was eventually settled out of court.

Nieuport’s profitability depends on the number of flights and passengers moving through Billy Bishop Airport. Since Covid, Nieuport has lost about a third of its passengers. The annual number of passengers using Billy Bishop has dropped from 2.77 million in 2019 to 1.75 million in 2025. Nieuport sees jets as a way of winning back customers, and has been lobbying all levels of government to approve the operation of jet aircraft at Billy Bishop Airport.

I asked Nieuport Aviation if the company is currently profitable, and whether it foresees that operating jets out of Billy Bishop Airport will improve its bottom line? The company’s spokesperson declined to answer either question. What is public from the Ontario Land Registry Office is that Nieuport Aviation borrowed $650 million from the Bank of Nova Scotia in 2015 to purchase the Billy Bishop Terminal buildings on both the mainland and Toronto Island. Nieuport management may be under substantial pressure from its investors to increase profits. Clearly, Nieuport Aviation has the most to gain if the federal government approves the operation of jets at Billy Bishop Airport. Air Canada and Porter can fly jets out of Pearson, so their options are relatively unaffected.

At the end of April, R. J. Steenstra, president and CEO of the Toronto Port Authority, gave an interview to The Globe & Mail and provided two key facts about the airport expansion. The Authority plans to add about 900 metres to the length of the existing runway, mainly by filling in Lake Ontario on the western side of Toronto Island. This will make the runway about 2 km long, about the same distance as between Yonge and Bathurst subway stations on Line 2.

To show our readers what the proposed changes will look like, Spacing worked with a visual information specialist to create Google Earth views using the most accurate information we could obtain from the Toronto Port Authority and previous studies. All new airport infrastructure was accurately plotted on Google Earth. Some graphics have been circulating on social media that greatly exaggerate the length of the extended runways into Toronto Harbour and Lake Ontario, so we tried to be as accurate as possible, given the limited data released to date by the Government of Ontario and the Toronto Port Authority.

Aviation consultant Oliver Wyman recommended that precision navigation approach lights be installed at Billy Bishop. Comparable airports, such as London City Airport, Chicago Midway, and LaGuardia in New York have approach lights to enable pilots to switch from instrument to visual flying on their final approach. Our graphic map reflects the extent of current data. Due to a lack of precise positioning, we don’t show the jet blast walls to be installed on the northern side and ends of the runways to reduce the force and sound of jet exhaust; hangars and other buildings that would have to be located to the south of the runway to accommodate the projected increase in flights; and new roads, parking and potentially a fixed link and access roads on the Toronto mainland.

While Premier Ford quotes private polling (which he has not released) to buttress his rationale for expanding Billy Bishop, authoritative studies contradict his claims. In 2024, KPMG determined that southern Ontario would not need another airport for at least 20 years. It noted Pearson has the capacity to expand while high-speed rail could divert 2.3 million passengers per year from air travel.

In light of that forecast, the federal government in 2025 disposed of the 35 sq.-km (3,500 hectares) it had been retaining for a proposed Pickering international airport. Travel by Canadians to the U.S. last year also dropped by 25%, according to Statistics Canada, as the boycott in response to President Donald Trump’s tariffs continues. Many companies are cutting back on business travel in favour of videoconferencing. Estimates of the reduction of in-person business meetings range from 20-40%.

In the meantime, Toronto City Council has passed several resolutions condemning what it sees as Ford’s anti-democratic legislation to take control of Billy Bishop and expropriate city-owned airport and park lands on Toronto Islands, as well as on the mainland around the ferry terminal.

For some 25 years, residents of Toronto have consistently voted for mayors who opposed jets at Billy Bishop Airport.

See Jet Dreams on Toronto Island (Part 2) for the concluding installment of this article.

Ian Darragh is a former editor-in-chief, Canadian Geographic magazine, and feature writer for National Geographic.

The post Jet Dreams on Toronto Island (Part 1) appeared first on Spacing Toronto.

The problem is a gendered one, with women taking on more unpaid care responsibilities and domestic labour than men. And while supports for caregivers do exist, there are often significant barriers to access. For example, subsidised childcare waitlists stretch for years.

The barriers can also be geographic. Many low-income families live in “transit deserts,” areas like parts of Scarborough, Etobicoke, or North York that are underserved by rapid transit. Meanwhile, legal aid, mental health support, and adult education programmes exist in silos (PDF), and are rarely accessible to a substantial number of caregivers who need them most.

The result is what economists call “time poverty”: a chronic, grinding shortage of time that falls hardest on low-income women, racialised communities, and immigrant families already navigating systems not built for them.

It is a structural failure with real economic consequences. When caregivers cannot access training or steady employment, Toronto’s labour market loses skilled workers. When care falls apart, families fall apart. The city pays for this crisis of care downstream, in social services, in healthcare, in lost economic productivity, long after the moment a caregiver missed the bus to a class she couldn’t afford to take.

Toronto’s City Council should look to Bogotá, Colombia for a practical, proven answer.

Since 2020, Bogotá has been building a network of Manzanas del Cuidado, “Care Blocks,” that bring childcare, eldercare, legal aid, adult education, and job training together within a 15-minute walk in the districts where caregiving burdens fall hardest. The model starts from a simple premise: care work is concentrated in low-income, underserved neighbourhoods. Therefore, infrastructure must be too.

Each Care Block co-locates programmes so that while children attend tutoring or play, their parents can complete a diploma, see a therapist, or attend job training. Public laundries free up hours lost to handwashing. Legal advisors and counsellors support women experiencing domestic violence. Co-ordinators trained in feminist planning oversee these hubs, often working alongside the caregivers who helped design them.

Critically, Bogotá’s success required co-ordination instead of massive new spending. Departments of health, education, social inclusion, and urban planning restructured how existing services were delivered — spatially instead of bureaucratically. This co-ordination was driven by political leadership. Mayor Claudia López, Bogotá’s first woman and openly LGBTQ+ mayor, reframed care as economic infrastructure rather than charity. During the pandemic, when unpaid care work surged, López made caregiving central to the city’s recovery, treating time as a resource that cities can redistribute. Colombia had already begun measuring unpaid care as part of its GDP, revealing it represented nearly 20 per cent of national output, making the invisible visible.

By 2024, the city had opened 24 Care Blocks, with plans for 45 by 2035. In four years, over 46,000 people earned diplomas or training certificates through programmes delivered within the Care Blocks, and nearly 240,000 participated in wellness activities on site.

Toronto already has the raw materials: community centres, libraries, schools, public health offices, settlement services. A pilot care hub in a transit-accessible, high-need neighbourhood such as Rexdale, Malvern, or Thorncliffe Park could demonstrate what co-ordinated, place-based care infrastructure looks like in a Canadian city. It would not require building something new from scratch. It would require building differently with what already exists.

Bogotá’s Care Blocks remind us that equity is built into the streets, schedules, and systems of a city. If we want a caring, functional, economically resilient Toronto, we need to design for it.

Obaid Khan is an MBA candidate at University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.

This piece was written as part of the Centre for Global Social Policy’s Opinion Piece project, with funding from SSHRC and the Canada Research Chairs.

Photo via Unsplash 

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A worn cornerstone bearing the hyphenated dates 1880-1902 was visible at the entrance to the single-storey front office building at 440 Dufferin. Both dates relate to the early history of the Toronto Hardware Manufacturing Company, which was founded in 1880 and opened a modern factory on this site in 1902. The company had been formed as a partnership between two prominent Toronto businessmen, Harry Patterson and George Gouinlock. Its advertised products included plumbers’ supplies, galvanized range boilers (water heaters) and soil pipe (iron sewer pipe).

Like the majority of industrial plants built during the early 1900s, this one was sited to take advantage of a rail corridor, which crossed the city’s street grid on the diagonal. The plant’s own sidings and freight shed were part of a rail terminal established directly behind the property. Aerial survey photos show that this rail connection remained in use until the early 1960s.

The street grid in the area was another matter. Until 2010, when an underpass was completed, upper Dufferin Street ended at the rail embankment, a few yards south of the Toronto Hardware Manufacturing Co. plant, and lower Dufferin began at Queen Street. Between them traffic was routed through the “Dufferin Jog,” which involved Peel, Gladstone and Queen.

On February 3, 1953 the New York Times reported that the Toronto Hardware Manufacturing Company had been purchased by Affiliated Gas Equipment Ltd. of Cleveland, and its name soon disappeared from the city directory. For a couple of decades the factory buildings remained only partially occupied. The complex became known as the Massey Ferguson building, having, it seems, served as a warehouse for the nearby Massey Ferguson Toronto Plant.

In 1980, Bill Nyman moved his furniture factory, Ascot Chair, from the former Ideal Bread factory building at 183 Dovercourt Road (now known as The Argyle Lofts) to 440 Dufferin. Nyman had studied design at Central Tech. He and a partner founded Ascot Chair in 1958 in response to the growing demand for their custom designs.

The company’s upholstered chairs were sold through Sears Canada, but in 1993 a decline in demand for his furniture convinced Nyman to close the factory. He then began to divide its 117,000 square feet of floor space into rental studios, in bespoke sizes suited to the needs of local artists and craftspeople.

Among the early tenants were two artists’ cooperatives, The Wood Studio Collective and the Geisterblitz Glass Group. Later, in 2009, Akin Studios leased 2,000 square feet, creating shared space for 25 artists. Nyman’s daughter Judy Nyman remembers a time when there were 80 tenants.

It seems likely that the opening of the underpass connecting Dufferin to Queen Street in 2010 alerted developers to the site’s potential for rezoning from “industrial” to “residential.” Nyman sold the site to Siteline Property Management in 2011. Later, the condominium development that replaced the industrial buildings was promoted as belonging to the “trendy” West Queen West community.

In August, 2017, I began photographing the complex at the urging of the glass artist Alfred Engerer, who had been the superintendent there since 2010. The industriousness of the place and its obvious precariousness had personal significance for me. At the time, I was debating whether I could afford to keep my own studio in the Junction, where I had a well equipped darkroom.

The abrupt shifts between black and white and colour in the sequence below requires an explanation. I had intended to devote a year to the project, and was hoping to complete two parallel series, the main one in black and white and a less extensive one in colour. However, by August 2017 Siteline had sold the complex to 390 Dufferin GP Ltd., which then gave tenants notice to vacate their spaces early in 2018. In the last months, tenants were engaged in a frantic search for new space.

The subsequent history of the Dufferin Street studio site illustrates how Toronto City Council can rationalize replacing 117,000 square feet of productive studio space with nothing at all. Things started well, with a development agreement approved by the OMB that required the developer to provide 59,740 square feet of subsidised “employment floor space” for a small business incubation centre in one of three new condominium towers.

Small business incubation is a worthy goal, but Toronto City Council allowed the developer to escape from its obligation to provide the space in return for a cash payment of $2,416,451. While the money went into the City’s coffers and the developer gained control of the space, the former tenants of the Dufferin Street studios received no benefit.

All photos © P. MacCallum (petermaccallum.com)

The author wishes to thank Alfred Engerer and Barbara Nyman for their help with his research for this article.

View the full gallery of 35 images by scrolling through the photogallery below.

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That grimly monochromatic version of a high-density community of an estimated 15,000 people looked, basically, like the cluster of big glass buildings in the South Core — large blocks, large podiums, large towers, no imagination.

After the City and WT were told in no uncertain terms to go back to the proverbial drawing board, they recruited a noted Danish landscape design shop, SLA, to lead an effort to conjure up something more expressive of the location and less (obviously) beholden to the least imaginative manifestations of Toronto high rise development.

The big reveal occurred last week, assisted by WT’s PR machine. The new “development concept plan” will go before council’s planning and transportation committee on Thursday.

In several important ways, this plan is an improvement, featuring a much more granular approach to the development of a 21-acre island using smaller blocks, some riffs on public space (about which more in a moment) and a far greater variety of envisioned building sizes and forms, described in the proposal as “strategic density.” Per the bird’s eye renderings, the result is — or will be, or may be — a city scape that aspires to urbanism instead of ROI.

But I must confess I don’t love the new concept plan, and found myself wondering about the long-term viability of the ideas and symbolism it extolls — all the gestures towards Indigenization and the car-free high street (“commons”), as well as an idea of density that evokes those sections of mid-town Manhattan where buildings of all vintages, heights and purposes are crammed atmospherically together (and which took generations to achieve).

To my eye, the existential planning challenge confronting Ookwemin Minising is very obvious and external to the site itself: how does this island avoid becoming another Liberty Village, a precinct encumbered by a huge amount of density that is isolated from transit and cut off from the west end by transportation infrastructure? In fact, there are two other analogous development zones that should offer Toronto planners some cautionary lessons: the aforementioned South Core and City Place, between the Rogers Centre and Bathurst Street.

WT’s long-term and successful planning outlook has been to invest heavily in creating enticing public spaces — parks, boardwalks, etc. — that will, in turn, attract developers eager to build near such amenities. Ookwemin is surrounded on two sides — to the west and the south — with some of the most spectacular public spaces this city has ever created, i.e., Biidaasige Park, and the lower Don, as well the new park at the mouth of the Keating channel.

These spaces are necessary to attract development there, but they are not sufficient, and the reason has to do with transit. Yes, there are some bus loops through the port lands. Yes, some of the political blockage around the Waterfront East LRT loosened earlier this year with a big funding announcement. But that LRT project is years and years from completion, and, so far, we’re only talking about one part of the proposed streetcar service into Ookwemin.

Assuming the city and WT aren’t willing to wait for a decade-plus to tender the early development parcels, it seems highly likely to me that many of the first projects will offer plenty of parking to attract buyers/tenants who own cars they’ll need for crazy errands, like grocery shopping (how much density is required on Ookwemin to justify a supermarket?) or dropping kids off at school. Absent streetcars, we’ll be baking in car use, as well as bottlenecks near the two signature bridges, described in the new concept plan as “special moments.” Incidentally, the bottleneck story plays out twice daily at the spot where Liberty Village opens onto Strachan.

I also find that two of the most public-facing elements — the Centre Street Commons and Ookwemin Street, which are all or mainly pedestrian-oriented — to be performative, fodder for colour-saturated renderings and gullible city councillors, but by no means durable or even compelling.

More than most places with troubled settler narratives, Toronto has made significant strides in Indigenizing and decolonizing, which is as it should be. Indeed, I’d argue that the high-water mark of this work is the re-naturalization of the lower Don — a profound and historic gesture towards reconnecting the city with its pre-settler past.

Next to that, Ookwemin Street — which uses meandering paver markings and trees to evoke an historic Indigenous path to the sandbars that became the Toronto Islands — feels gimmicky, and not especially resilient. We all know the type of public space neglect the City of Toronto is capable of, and I don’t think it’s overly cynical to predict that this “trail” will go the way of a lot of these kinds of high-concept landscaping gestures — torn up by roadwork, sloppily re-paved, littered upon, etc., etc.

Likewise the lushly landscaped Centre Street Commons, which is intended to somehow attract a spine of development, but without a civic focal point that will serve as an anchor and a magnet. Absent buildings, the Commons is just a street without a street wall. So the question is, does this particular expression of public space interest developers? It may be a lovely idea to have a car-free pedestrian street running through a fully built-out Ookwemin, but I’m not convinced this particular proposal is grand enough to entice builders to invest in a highly challenging area.

Finally, the projected walking times in the plan seem hugely optimistic, maybe clocking the pace of someone who is young and/or moves very quickly. Ookwemin’s south-east blocks, which will be developed last, are as far from the earliest phases, as well as proposed public spaces like Sandbar Square, as Church Street is from University Avenue. Not super far, but not close either, especially in a setting that will remain raw for years to come.

Sandbar Square — which is to overlook the Keating Channel, eventually facing a wall of tall towers, with another wall of tall towers at its back — to me exemplifies an unresolved tension at the core of this plan. Is Ookwemin supposed to be a piece of fully realized city, with all the trimmings, or does it aspire (at least via the design team’s ideas) to concoct some kind of naturalized, Indigenized slice of Manhattan or King West? Will the developers who build here buy in? And will the people who go to live there embrace these ideas as they go about the ordinary tasks of big city living?

Initially, those first residents will be, well, pioneers, colonizing, dare I say, this new-old piece of Toronto, and whatever form of urbanism takes root there. But if we want the future residents of Ookwemin Minising to live according to a vision of low-carbon urbanism, the city’s got to do the tough quotidian work of providing sufficient transit to ensure this precinct gestates and then functions without importing a glut of cars.

Whether the new concept plan gets us there, or even to the starting line, is an open question.

The post LORINC: The finicky business of planning Ookwemin Minising appeared first on Spacing Toronto.

Now, are we patting ourselves on the back in pre-emptive celebration of having resolved all conflicts between road users after a few 45-minute workshops, free lights, and delivery bag giveaways? No. Do we think we’ll get the odd email from folks who’ve spotted a Biking Lawyer bag worn by someone skirting the law? Probably, yes. But the goal wasn’t to create a perfect solution. Just perhaps a workable one that could be a scalable option for municipalities and food delivery companies to more effectively address community concerns over the growing number of people using e-bikes for gig work.

That’s where this idea came from, community concerns. On the one hand we saw story after story in the press of politicians demanding action to address allegedly dangerous e-bikers on our roads and sidewalks (without any data on collisions to support their demands). This we generally have balked at for its gut-reaction, inauthentic feeling. Really, we’re going to confiscate someone’s e-bike for riding on a sidewalk but not a motor vehicle that rolls over one into a daycare?

That said, we also ride our bikes along the Bloor-Yonge corridor, to work, for exercise, and to run errands. We see the cycling community chat groups discuss near misses and understand how it feels sharing bike lanes or walking on sidewalks next to large battery-propelled vehicles. So, we did some informal community polling to see what our fellow cyclists’ concerns were (passing without notice, riding while on the phone, passing on the right, etc.) and ordered 500 Biking Lawyer branded delivery bags.

Our goal: to incentivize safe cycling amongst a group of hard-working time-pressed individuals (and get some free advertising).

To get the bag, you had to attend a session on the Rules of the Road, Cycling Etiquette, Bike Safety, What to do in a Collision, and How to Avoid Police Tickets. It wasn’t clear what the response would be, but quickly it became clear that not only was this session popular, but these working cyclists were ready to engage and share their experiences. What do I do if someone sells me an illegal bike or non-UL battery. What can we do to organize access to washrooms while we’re working, and so on.

Each of the three days the crowd grew, 60, 70, and then 100. Each day more people left the safe cycling sessions better equipped to keep themselves, and other road users, safe. Yes, the business model behind their gig work prioritizes speed and risky maneuvers to ensure your smoothie is delivered on time, but by way of a show of hands of who’s been hit by a motorist or nearly hit (hint: the whole crowd). Their safety matters to them too.

We are delighted by how things went. No, not much media showed up to hear from us or the hundreds of young men (and some women) who are so often vilified and voiceless in articles quoting councillor concerns over their riding behaviour. But the word got out to the gig worker community. The emails for free bags, and another workshop, are still coming in.

Importantly, we’ve created a model for those councillors and others to actually reach those they are concerned are riding dangerously. If our rider walking his e-moped on the sidewalk is any indicator, it’s also a working model of how to encourage safe behaviours that doesn’t task our 1.5 billion dollar police force with handing out hundreds of dollar tickets to (mostly) racialized working young people (education over enforcement).

Meaningful dialogue and active listening in a collaborative environment are key first steps in addressing community concerns; we believe that a little empathy can go a long way.

David Shellnutt is the founder of The Biking Lawyer LLP.

Photo courtesy of The Biking Lawyer LLP.

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Soccer may be the beautiful game, but this summer’s World Cup event is marred by its share of ugliness. Globally, as millions prepare to travel to 16 host cities including Toronto and Vancouver, there is the uncertain threat of civil unrest or violence at matches, along with the very real fear of displacement and state-sponsored brutality in a United States that deported half a million people last year. Locally, there is the opportunism of cities charging multiples of transit fares to stadia in New Jersey and Boston, not to mention Toronto’s proposed then quickly retracted plan to exact a $10 entry fee for access to a public fan festival — the very site intended as a no-barrier commons where we can all enjoy a free party together.

The pettiness of these moves, even fully acknowledging sport and commerce as bedfellows, seems entirely out of proportion with the scale of an event that will engage 6 billion people worldwide, likely making it the largest cultural phenomenon ever.

But what if the World Cup can be a coalescing force for good in our polarized and anxious lives? What if it brings people together across differences at a time when collectivism feels like it is on a slow decline toward extinction?

This is the question — thanks to some prompting from young people — that we have been asking ourselves at Maximum City, where we are co-leading a multiyear project to study and improve the impact of major sporting events like the World Cup on families. Across our engagements thus far with thousands of children and youth in three host cities — Guadalajara, Toronto, and New York/New Jersey — the most common complaint about the event is that it is too expensive. With fee increases for public services reaching the hundreds and ticket prices exceeding the thousands, this is not surprising. What’s refreshing is that the most commonly cited benefit of the World Cup, according to youth, is its clarifying power to bring people together: in community, across nations, between cultures, and beyond sport.

The World Cup brings fans from across the world together, builds community in young people in a very divided world. — Age 15, Toronto

It’s good for getting along with more people and demonstrates peace both on and off the pitch. — Age 15, Guadalajara

I think the World Cup is extremely good for all people in cities across North and South America. It introduces people to so many different cultures and an amazing sporting atmosphere. But it is an experience that is completely unattainable for young people because of how expensive it is. — Age 17, New York/New Jersey

At a time when we sorely need connection to place and the ability to see and listen to each other across differences, this may be the most important message to spread about the World Cup. And for those of us in Toronto and Vancouver questioning the social and economic value proposition, it is the singular message to carry forward into the final stages of event planning and delivery. Make the World Cup about spending nonjudgmental time with others in public space, in the declivity of The Bentway or the sanctuary of Hastings Park. Make it about the lost art of talking to strangers and debating a big cultural thing we are all sharing in. Make it an open and inclusive party where walk-ins are welcome, not a financialized and securitized premium experience. Make it about getting to know the people and the culture of one of the lesser known — to you — 47 other countries in the tournament. Make it about humanism, not nihilism. And take the party into neighbourhoods far from the fan sites and venues that are the focal points of our attention.

Recently, Toronto’s taglines of The World in a City and A City of Neighbourhoods have been ringing hollow. Torontonians mostly stick to their own tribe these days, complaining about other neighbourhoods without ever leaving their own. The city is starting to look and feel like dozens of global cities where families have been priced or driven out by declining quality of life. The concept of “uTOpia” — Toronto as an urban ideal and world class city — peaked almost 20 years ago with a series of books by Coach House Press that now feel quaint, like historical ephemera. A new generation has a more rational handle on this city worn by broken systems.

The World Cup is good because it’s a big event that helps the community get to know each other better. — Age 13, Guadalajara

I think the World Cup is good for our city because it brings the community together and helps people of all gender, sexual orientation, and background connect. — Age 11, Toronto

It’s an exciting place to get together with people you know and people from different places of the world and watch the same thing, to get excited for the same thing and being happy is healthy and good for young people’s wellbeing. — Age 14, Toronto

Toronto’s potential tagline for the World Cup, however, holds significant promise: A Home Game for Every Country. This makes immediate sense to those of us who have experienced Toronto during past World Cups, when for six weeks fans from every nation celebrate in volume and colour to make a richness in the fabric of our city. And even more auspiciously, it makes sense to the generation set to inherit our cities, echoing the aspirations of the young people in our study. The beautiful game at its best is not just a game, but a language for talking to each other and understanding why we are different and competing but still in this together.

The World Cup brings people together to enjoy watching sport recreationally, connecting young people from all over the world. — Age 14, Toronto

I think it’s good because it brings the community together and age doesn’t matter when everyone is bonding over a sport they love. — Age 15, Toronto

Josh Fullan is the founder and executive director of Maximum City.
Editor’s Note: Spacing co-founder and senior editor Todd Harrison is a Maximum City employee, and is involved in the organization’s World Cup project.

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As a regular in the Village, experiencing these crowds over the years got me thinking how things can and should be better. We have glimpses of what it could be like –– the Village is already creating pedestrian-only spaces during Halloween and Pride, drawing even larger crowds. It seems like a no-brainer to do it year long, or at least seasonally.

Pedestrianization Examples

Montreal has many pedestrian streets, both seasonal and permanent. Their Gay Village along Rue Sainte-Catherine already seasonally pedestrianizes every year. It’s been so successful that they’re rebuilding the road to be a year round pedestrian street. Studies have shown that many businesses overestimate the amount of people who come to their business by car versus walking, biking, and transit. Fortunately, some businesses like in the Church Wellesley Village BIA have started to realize that people bring business, not cars. There are also so many other great international examples of pedestrian streets that I can’t list them all, but as a sample: Mexico City, Barcelona, and Tokyo all do a great job in different ways.

The Posting to Policy Pipeline

This inspired me to create a conceptual map of what Toronto’s Church Street could look like pedestrianized from Carlton to Dundonald. This particular section is the heart of the Village, with most of the restaurants, bars, and businesses. I chose Carlton as the southern end because that’s where a busy arterial and the 506 Streetcar runs. I wanted to make it transit accessible, but also to naturally encourage people to walk up Church from Carlton. Originally, I wanted to end the pedestrianization at Wellesley where another transit route (94 bus) and major street is, but I extended it to Dundonald as I felt including Barbara Hall Park and The 519 Community Centre were essential. By recognizing these culturally significant institutions and spaces, we could fully realize the potential of the project.

The area is also well-connected to transit and cycling infrastructure. The entire section is within a 5 minute walk of both Wellesley and College subway stations on Line 1. The area is easy to reach by bike, with bike lanes east-west on Wellesley and Gerrard, while the Bloor and the Yonge protected bike lanes nearby can funnel in people from the rest of the city. There are also an abundance of Bikeshare docks in the area.

I posted this map last year across social media in March of 2025, garnering lots of attention. Most importantly, local councillor Chris Moise took notice when I reposted it many months later in August. He had also been thinking about pedestrianizing Church Street and had visited Montreal, realizing its benefits. His office reached out to me and we have since been working out the details for the last eight months. I’d especially like to thank Francesca Policarpio at Councillor Moise’s office who’s been working tirelessly to make this work. This has included extensive stakeholder consultation with the Church Wellesley BIA, Pride Toronto, the local neighbourhood association, The 519, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, city staff, transportation services, emergency services, and police.

Creating a plan with all these stakeholders meant contending with a long logistical list of permitting, insurance, licenses, waste collection, security, deliveries, traffic management, hostile vehicle mitigation, and other issues before we could even talk about what activating the street could look like. By the end of the scoping process, it looked like we were only able to do Alexander to Dundonald, but I was happy with this being the busiest three of the five blocks I initially proposed. However, we recently had to further cut it down from just Wellesley to Dundonald as there is a development soon to be under construction which required traffic lanes open north of Wellesley. Still, I’m confident of the remaining two blocks –– that’s where the Village contains the most businesses and sidewalk overcrowding. Hopefully, the pilot’s success will mean extending the pedestrianization further in length and time span.

Traffic

Regarding traffic concerns, Church is a minor street. For most of the day, it’s one lane both ways with parking lanes on both sides. There are much better alternatives on parallel streets to the west on Bay St and Yonge St, and to the east on Jarvis St and Sherbourne St. Shutting down two blocks in a city with over 5,600km of streets is not going to break the system. At just 400 metres, the proposed area would be 0.00007% of the city’s streets. Plus, this is one of the most transit, cycling, and walking accessible areas of the city, and yet we still have cross-street access, passenger pick-up areas, and many parking options available, making the street truly accessible to all.

Pedestrianization Policy Context in Toronto

While I listed inspiration elsewhere, Toronto actually has done pedestrianizations before. Gould Street on the Toronto Metropolitan University campus has been extremely successful, starting with a one-year pedestrianization pilot in 2010 leading to permanent pedestrianization in 2012. Originally two to three car lanes, it is now a wide pedestrian promenade for students to walk, sit, eat, study, chat, and linger. It makes walking from class to class easier and safer. The University of Toronto also pedestrianized Willcocks Street in 2010, and while it’s much smaller in length and may need some sprucing up today, it shows Toronto is willing to pedestrianize if institutions like universities are willing to partner to upkeep the space.

Kensington Market has had very popular pedestrian days on the last Sunday of each month from May to October. More recently, Market Street beside St. Lawrence Market has been regularly pedestrianized for the summer and for events like the popular Winter Market, demonstrating the possibilities of pedestrianization in all seasons. There is precedence in Toronto for pedestrianization as long as an entity is willing to commit to taking care of the space. In the case of Church Street, the Church Wellesley Village BIA has been one of the biggest supporters of the project and would take a large role in managing and activating the space. This means upkeep, street art, performances, and other activities.

Alignment with City Policy and Goals

The project also closely aligns with many of the City’s goals. Vision Zero aims to reduce road deaths to zero. This means prioritizing the safety of the most vulnerable first, namely pedestrians. TransformTO aims to get Toronto to net zero greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) by 2040 and transportation is the city’s second largest source of GHGs, accounting for roughly 36% of emissions. Getting people out of their cars and walking is essential for this to happen. This further matches the city’s Downtown Mobility Strategy that adopted the long-term goal of reaching 75% of trips under 5 kilometers as active trips (walking or cycling) by 2050. This means attracting people to walk by creating safer and more pleasant streets.

Future Opportunities

This pilot provides multiple opportunities into the future. Church Street is being resurfaced in the next two to five years and this pedestrianization pilot will inform the design of it, hopefully recognizing the merits of pedestrian-centered design. This project will also provide the city with a stronger framework for seasonal pedestrianization elsewhere. There is currently a permitting system for few day or weekend street festivals that shut down streets, but no formal system for longer seasonal projects. The Church Street pilot is a crucial step toward how the city will consider these types of transformative street projects in the future, which is why it’s so important to support it now.

How to Support the Project

To support the project, make sure to do the survey and sign the petition. The motion will go to Toronto East York Community Council on April 30th as a member motion, and once it is on the agenda, you can write a letter of support or sign up to speak at the meeting. If passed, it will then move on to City Council for final approval. If you would like to speak, please email me (rodney.chan3@gmail.com) and Francesca (francesca.policarpio@toronto.ca).

If approved, the pilot will run from June 19 to August 21, overlapping with FIFA and Pride, giving the city much needed space to celebrate both events. To be honest, this is still surreal for me –– I never thought this would happen, spurred by a social media post. I’m extremely grateful for all the hard work people have done on this project, and the outpouring of support that has already come from the community. Help me turn this dream and community vision into a reality! Lastly, come say hello to me if you ever see me hanging around in the Village. See you on Church Street!

Rodney Chan is a safe streets and public transit advocate. He is currently finishing his degree in urban planning. Follow him @_chanface on Instagram and X, and chanface.bsky.social on BlueSky.

Top illustration by Jake Tobin. Maps and photos by Rodney Chan

The post Church Street Needs to Be Pedestrianized appeared first on Spacing Toronto.

There exists a paradox in city life. Toronto’s population has been increasing, bringing rapid development, rising density, and more people than ever before. But — do more people lead to more connections?

In its 2023 Vital Signs report, The Power of Us,  the Toronto Foundation identified loneliness and social disconnection as among the city’s most urgent challenges, calling it a “quiet epidemic.” “Toronto the Good is Toronto the Lonely” reveals that 37% of residents — roughly 925,000 people — feel lonely at least three or four days a week. These numbers give voice to a fundamental vulnerability felt across our communities: we are facing a crisis of connection.

This is not unique to Toronto – it’s a global phenomenon. In 2025, the Copenhagen-based urban innovation hub BLOXHUB explored this issue in The Paradox of Proximity. Drawing on case studies and interviews from cities around the world, including Toronto, the report shows that across many cities, even though we’re living closer to each other, we are feeling more isolated. Similarly, the World Health Organization’s 2025 Commission on Social Connection estimates that roughly one in six people worldwide — about 16% of the population — experience loneliness, and that this contributes to more than 871,000 deaths annually.

But if these numbers paint a sobering picture, Jane Jacobs shows us a hopeful path forward. In The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jacobs describes city life as the “ballet of the sidewalk,” a constantly evolving choreography of everyday encounters where cities become living, breathing ecosystems that influence, and are influenced by, those living in them. Democracy happens on the streets and the sidewalks, shaped by the experiences of diverse communities sharing spaces.

After Jane Jacobs’ passing in Toronto in 2006, her friends and family created the Jane’s Walk festival to honour her legacy. Now in its 19th year, Jane’s Walk, taking place annually on the first weekend of May, has grown into a global movement, with thousands of volunteer-led walking conversations having been hosted in over 500 cities, across more than 46 countries and six continents.

The ethos of Jane’s Walk is simple — people gathering to walk and talk about their neighbourhoods. No podiums, no gatekeepers, no required expertise. Anyone can lead a walk. At a time when it feels like public discourse is increasingly polarized and mediated through screens, Jane’s Walk offers a different way to engage, one rooted in empathy and lived experience. The festival asks us to slow down and pay attention to each other.

This year’s Jane’s Walk festival theme, “Our Streets, Our Stories,” arrives at a moment when many are searching for a way back to belonging. It is an invitation to reclaim public space by sharing, questioning, and seeing the city through the perspectives of those who live and shape it.

In cities like Toronto, where rapid growth and development can sometimes outpace community connection, these collective experiences are essential. They remind us that a neighbourhood is not just a collection of buildings, it is a network of interconnected relationships where democracy goes beyond ballot boxes and catchy slogans. It is an ongoing practice: sharing space, listening together, and negotiating the differences that make us unique. By walking together and exchanging stories of history, struggle, joy, and change, we build empathy and open up new perspectives.

Walking itself is significant — it is accessible, informal, and open-ended. Conversations emerge naturally and people can join or leave at any time. Jane’s Walk is not a solution to urban loneliness or civic disengagement, but it is a start. It suggests that connection is possible and that even our smallest stories have value.

But what about beyond the festival weekend? What would it take to make our public spaces — parks, sidewalks, and streets — places where we do not just cross paths with, but actually engage with people different than us? How might intentional investment change not just how a city looks, but how it feels? How do we build cities where we feel like we belong? What are we willing to do to get there?

With an election approaching, investing in communities is crucial. We see glimmers of this in projects like PlazaPOPS and Toronto Greeters where streets become spaces of dialogue, not  just a way to get from one place to another. If cities are where democracy lives, then shaping them is a fundamental civic act. Choosing to walk, listen, and share stories becomes a way of rebuilding connection — and that may be the most important infrastructure of all.

Jane’s Walk 2026 takes place May 1st to May 3rd. Explore a diversity of volunteer-led walks featuring passionate local storytellers, community partners, non-profit organizations, grassroots and resident groups, the City of Toronto, and residents who generously share their stories to celebrate our neighbourhoods. Visit our website for our updated list of walks: janeswalkfestivalto.com/walks

Photo by Tooba Tariq

The post OP-ED: Walking the Lonely City appeared first on Spacing Toronto.

News dropped this week that Anthony Furey, the right-wing broadcaster turned occasional candidate, has graciously withdrawn from the 2026 mayoral race in an attempt to not fracture the political right, whose de facto standard-bearer is Brad Bradford — for now.

“My advisors tell me that my latest polling numbers are actually pretty good for a busy hockey dad who’s been keeping a low profile this year,” he wrote in a post on X. “That said, I don’t feel the time is right for me and I’m going to sit this one out.”

Furey, lest we forget, won almost four times as many votes as Bradford in the 2023 mayoral by-election — 35,899 to 9,254 — but belonged a collection of right and centre-right candidates who succeeded in fracturing that end of the city’s electoral base. They included Ana Bailao, the John Tory heir apparent, and Mark Saunders, Doug Ford’s stalking horse.

All told, the self-identifying right/centre-right candidates garnered 342,495 votes to Olivia Chow’s 269,372. What’s more, she won in a year with middling turn-out, on the heels of a mini-scandal.

I get that it’s a bit of a mug’s game to perform reverse calculus on elections using such tallies, but there’s little doubt that Toronto’s political right shot itself in the foot three years ago, and is, perhaps, keen to not reprise that particular mistake. (Bailao and Saunders are certainly not going to re-surface, and there aren’t obvious other candidates with sufficient profile.)

However, I’d like to argue that a more unified political right in the coming election can be good for the political centre-left and Chow, provided the mayor and her advisors recognize this opportunity for what it is, and also for what it isn’t.

In politics, as in sports, it is always better to be competing against someone who’s going to make you work as hard as you can to win. The problem with races like 2023 is that they allow the beneficiary of a fractured opposition to coast, or at least take certain things for granted, namely the circular firing squad effect.

Chow in 2023 ran a decent campaign, with a significant assist from the operatives at Progress Toronto. But Bailao — a less high-profile figure, who then served as Tory’s deputy mayor and his housing czar — came pretty close to besting a politician with a long and illustrious political resume who also carried the change mantle after nine years of Tory rule.

In office, Chow has served as a competent chief magistrate, with some important policy wins (e.g., stabilizing the city’s finances, significant advances on affordable housing, a certain amount of movement on gridlock), some expedient trade-offs (e.g., the city highways-for-cash deal with Doug Ford) and some cringe moments, when you wish she’d do more to vigorously stand up for Toronto (e.g., the island airport, Ford’s attack on bike lanes).

Yet I’d also say that she tends to defer to city staff more than she should — case in point, the seemingly endless bureaucratic gamesmanship over proposals to pedestrianize lower Yonge Street, or the mess accumulating around Toronto’s slice of the FIFA World Cup.

What’s more, Chow’s going to wear quality-of-city-life issues that grate on residents, including shoddy TTC service, ambient upper-middle-class anxiety about crimes such as car thefts and home invasions, and Toronto’s perennial pre-occupation with urban filth.

Mainly, she’s got to pass the electoral blink test: Does she project some combination of leadership, the gravitas befitting the mayor of Canada’s biggest city, and energy? Sort of…? Indeed, you don’t have to be a conservative to wonder if Chow needs to find ways to up her political game now that she’s an incumbent as opposed to a change candidate.

Bradford and his acolytes will be making precisely this assertion — that he is the change candidate: younger, more energetic, and performatively scrappier than a mayor who, like her predecessor, too often reckoned she could cut back-room deals with a bully-boy premier.

But to my eye, his decision to be the `angry young guy,’ there to sublimate middle-class frustrations about whatever, not only misses the lesson of the moment we’re in, but also provides Chow an opening — potentially. The caveat is that she has to figure out how to campaign in the register of voters’ craving for something other than, well, anger.

New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, is the obvious exemplar here, but far from the only public figure who understands the profound importance of optimism in a period of surround-sound, Trumpian chaos. Lighting the proverbial candle instead of cursing the political darkness.

This is a life lesson that Manitoba’s Wab Kinew embraces, as well the amazing Artemis II astronauts, and especially Canada’s Jeremy Hansen. Consider, by contrast, why Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre remains so deeply unpopular: he’s all smarmy negativity and petulance, whereas Prime Minister Mark Carney demonstrates a remarkable confection of resolve and intelligence, leavened with good humour.

I don’t think either Chow or Bradford communicate optimism in the face of adversity with any great degree of authenticity. Bradford doesn’t try at all, whereas Chow’s boosterism often comes across as forced.

Maybe they should both search more deeply. The 2026 version of the civic zeitgeist, it seems to me, not only craves this kind of voice, but actively demands it. Truthfully, Toronto voters may have to go without. Nonetheless, I would argue that the candidate who manages to find a way to be positive, hopeful and an advocate for genuine reform will emerge victorious this October, regardless of how many vote-splitters find their way onto our long ballot.

The post LORINC: A clarifying moment for this fall’s mayoral race appeared first on Spacing Toronto.

After I spent some time in the conservatory on a brisk March afternoon, it took me a second to adjust when I stepped back outside. The city felt overwhelmingly bright, almost like leaving a movie theatre in the middle of the day. Inside, everything had settled into a different rhythm. The air was warm and humid. Water moved through small streams under wooden bridges. Fish and turtles drifted through their enclosures. A stone path carried visitors forward at a slower pace. Even with people moving through it, the conservatory felt calm.

That feeling stayed with me after I left and it inspired a simple question. What can a place like this do for the people who spend time there?

Allan Gardens sits in a part of downtown where daily strain is easy to see, from housing pressure and personal struggles to the broader weight of trying to get through city life in an expensive core. The conservatory gives that stretch of the city something valuable. It is a free to enter, warm indoor space that is open year-round. It offers a place where a person can slow down for a while and be among living things, even in the middle of the winter. Michael McClelland, who has been involved in the push to expand Allan Gardens, told me that “there’s all kinds of stories about people finding the greenhouses as a place for respite.”

That word feels right. Respite does not promise too much. It describes a smaller kind of public value. Someone can walk in from the cold, hear water moving, smell damp air, and feel their attention settle. In a city where so much of public life is hurried and expensive, that has real meaning.

It’s a feeling that resonated with my fellow visitors. Patty Ewaschuk felt that shift on her first visit. “As soon as I walked in, the smell was, like, the best thing,” she told me. A moment later, she said, the conservatory brought back a vivid memory of summer. Heather Bell, who has been coming to Allan Gardens for years, described it as “a nice break from the winter season” and “a nice meeting place.” When I asked what a place like this might do for mental health, she said it can be “helpful” and “grounding,” especially for people adjusting to Toronto winters or trying to feel more at home in the city.

Those reactions make sense once you spend time inside. Allan Gardens works through atmosphere. The humidity changes how the air feels on your skin. The quiet changes how you hear. The greenery changes where your attention goes. McClelland put part of that into words when he said that “it’s not only the smell of the plants, it’s not only the look of the plants, it’s also the silence that exists in those greenhouses.” He described the conservatory as “a profoundly different kind of environment” that feels calming and relaxing.

That idea has a wider intellectual history behind it, even if most visitors would never think about it in those terms. In Steps to an Ecology of Mind, anthropologist Gregory Bateson wrote about one’s state of mind in relation to the wider environments and patterns that surround it. His work suggests that the mind, and by extension mental health, is shaped by the patterns and settings that it moves through. A change in environment can therefore change how a person feels and what their attention settles on.

Living environments can be especially powerful in that regard as they surround people with softly changing sights and sounds that give the mind something to notice, without making any heavy demands on it. This effect is a major emphasis in environmental psychologist Stephen Kaplan’s work on the restorative benefits of nature.

Allan Gardens makes that emphasis feel immediate. You do not need theory to notice the effect. You only need a few minutes inside to feel your own internal pace change.

The park is important here too. On my walk over, Allan Gardens stood out right away for how much more alive it felt than the blocks around it. There was open grass and mature trees scattered everywhere. More wildlife was visible here than in the rest of my walk put together. The conservatory only deepened that feeling. It gave the larger park a centre and drew people into a space that felt gentler than the city outside.

That matters in Toronto as density continues to rise. Janet Rosenberg, a landscape architect involved in planning work connected to Allan Gardens, said that “these parks are vital social infrastructure – our collective backyard.” Many Torontonians live in smaller homes and have limited access to places where they can sit quietly among trees or plants without paying for it. Allan Gardens already serves that purpose for the city.

That larger role also helps explain why a proposal to expand Allan Gardens was announced in February. Led by Friends of Allan Gardens with Zeidler Architects, Janet Rosenberg & Studio, and ERA Architects, the project would enlarge the conservatory and give it more room for year-round programming, horticultural learning, public use, and community events.

At the centre of the proposal are greenhouse additions meant to better connect the conservatory’s existing wings. The expansion would give them more space without disturbing the park around it, creating more space for the work Allan Gardens already does, while keeping the feeling of the place intact.

The case for expanding the Allan Gardens conservatory begins with what the place already does. It already offers relief and gives people a place to gather themselves. It shows that a public space can support the city in a quiet, yet impactful manner. A larger conservatory could give more people access to the kind of sensory relief and mental reset the conservatory already offers.

That point feels especially important in this part of downtown. Allan Gardens serves many different people, all from different walks of life. Some come for a walk. Some come with children. Some come because they need a free place to sit and relax for a while. In an area where many people have been enduring difficult circumstances, a place like this should not be dismissed as ornamental. It is a crucial part of how the city cares for the people who move through it.

When I stepped back outside, the effect was immediate. The bright light felt harsher than it had a few minutes earlier, and the street seemed to speed back up around me. That brief moment of re-entry clarified what the conservatory had done. It had changed the conditions of being in the city, if only for a little while.

That may be the clearest reason for the project to expand the Allan Gardens conservatory. The conservatory already offers a form of everyday restoration that is rare in Toronto, especially in a dense and pressured part of downtown. The value of growing it begins with the quiet work it already does for the people who pass through.

Photos by Alex Kharabian

The post Spreading the warmth appeared first on Spacing Toronto.