Avenue Road, a six-lane, high-speed motorway running through the heart of Toronto, no longer fits with contemporary ideas about road safety or with the schools, parks, residential towers and seniors’ residences in its path.
Avenue Road, a six-lane, high-speed motorway running through the heart of Toronto, no longer fits with contemporary ideas about road safety or with the schools, parks, residential towers and seniors’ residences in its path.
The 2.1-kilometre stretch between Bloor Street West and St. Clair Avenue West was widened in 1959 by the old Metro government by chopping down trees and pilfering space from sidewalks.
Metro’s priority, to move as many cars as quickly as possible, was clear. “I would cut five or six feet off many sidewalks, shove the poles back and create two new lanes for traffic,” Metro chair Fred Gardiner told the Toronto Star in 1953.
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