Working for Safe Sidewalks on Avenue Road between Bloor St. & St. Clair Ave.
A group of concerned citizens and an architecture firm are proposing to create a new linear park along Avenue Road to improve walkability and safety.
The proposal calls for the stretch of Avenue between Bloor Avenue West and St. Clair Avenue West to be reduced from six lanes of traffic down to four, which would allow for sidewalks to be widened 240 per cent from their current width and accommodate 500 new trees.
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.