Toronto waterfront

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Toronto Waterfront as seen from the CN Tower (looking south east)
Toronto Waterfront as seen from the CN Tower (looking south east)
Toronto Waterfront at Humber Bay
Toronto Waterfront at Humber Bay

The Toronto waterfront is the lakeshore of Lake Ontario in the City of Toronto, Ontario. It spans 46 kilometres between the mouth of Etobicoke Creek in the west, and the Rouge River in the East. The entire lakeshore has been significantly altered from its natural glaciated state prior to European settlement.

Contents

[edit] History

Foot of Yonge Street in 1910
Foot of Yonge Street in 1910

Since the last ice age, silt deposits, borne mostly from the erosion of the Scarborough Bluffs and the eluvial rivers to the east were swept by strong, natural Lake Ontario currents creating prominent fingers of land away from the lakeshore in the current central waterfront area, including the Toronto Islands. The shore of Lake Ontario (at least within present-day Toronto Harbour) is mostly landfill, extending a kilometre or more from the natural shoreline.

Adding to the existing silt deposits, Ashbridges Bay was filled in and the Portlands area (Cherry St to Leslie St) was created in the early 1900s. The bay was filled in partly due to concerns about public health – locals had disposed of sewage, farm animal carcasses and household waste in the bay for years. During this period the Don River, which used to flow into the bay to the south-west, was diverted (straightened) toward the harbour, first directly southward and later westward through the current configuration of the Keating Channel. Currently there are proposals to restore the original natural watercourse of the Don, which would bring it closer to the downtown core. The modern harbour area was mostly formed through landfill in the years around the First World War, to allow for deeper container vessel wharf access.

The waterfront functioned as an important industrial area for many years, providing shipping access to communities from Port Union in the east to Mimico in the west. Industry began to move out in droves the 1970s, leaving the public with heavily polluted sites (some of the main uses of the waterfront were oil and coal storage, waste disposal and incineration, and heavy manufacturing especially in Toronto harbour). The first efforts at change were launched in the 1920s shortly after the War. As an important promise of the 1972 Canadian election the Federal Liberals promised to improve Toronto's waterfront. The federal government gave the heavily polluted lands to the City of Toronto, but the city had no funds to clean up the 150 years of industrial pollution. Some buildings, such as Queen's Quay Terminal and Harbourfront Centre were remodelled, and others demolished and replaced by new structures. In this same period the industrial areas just north of the waterfront along the CN rail lines were also being abandoned and redeveloped. The nearby CN Tower and SkyDome (now Rogers Centre) were also linked to improving the area. These projects, with the exception of the tower, saw massive cost overruns and became heavily criticized.

In 1988 Prime Minister Brian Mulroney called another Royal Commission into the waterfront that was headed by former mayor David Crombie. It reported in 1992 with a detailed, but expensive plan of environmentally sound development following on the heels of his 1982-86 Toronto Waterfront Regeneration Trust Commission report. Few if any of the recommendations were carried out as had been the case during the previous 60 years.

Toronto's bids for the 1996 and 2008 Summer Olympics saw plans for much of the new facilities to be located along the waterfront, with all three levels of government committed to spending a great deal of money if the games were won, but on both attempts Toronto lost its bid due to the lack of diversity in facilities either planned or in situ and, except for further commercial condominium development at Harbourfront offering grandiose views of the water, the waterfront was unchanged. The recent bid by Toronto for the World's Fair 2015 also planned to use waterfront sites to accommodate the fair, but this bid also failed.

In February 2006 REGCO Holdings Inc. signed a contract with the Toronto Port Authority to run an airline service out of the Toronto City Centre (island) Airport. The new airline, run by Robert Deluce, has purchased ten 70 seater Bombardier turboprop planes. Controversy has erupted in part due to Mayor David Miller's pledge to shut down the airport, but also the timing of the previously unannounced deal, right after Federal election.

[edit] Ferry service

In June 2004, the company Canadian American Transportation Systems (CATS) began regular passenger/vehicle ferry service between Pier 52 and Rochester, New York using the vessel Spirit of Ontario I. The service used a marketing name called "The Breeze". While Rochester had a custom-built ferry terminal, the Toronto terminal was a temporary facility, near the end of Cherry Street for security and customs screening facilities while a permanent marine passenger terminal was still under consideration for construction. CATS discontinued the service after only 11 weeks; among the problems cited was the absence of a permanent marine passenger terminal in Toronto and literally no Canadian interest in the service. The Toronto Economic Development Corp [TEDCO] was not properly consulted by the American interests who combined with the Mayor saw little political favour in seeing the project through from the City of Toronto's point of view. The vessel was sold in a bankruptcy sale in February 2005 to Rochester Ferry Company LLC, a subsidiary of the City of Rochester. In April 2005, Rochester Ferry Company LLC announced that the Rochester-Toronto ferry service using Spirit of Ontario I would return, operated by Bay Ferries Great Lakes Limited and using the marketing name "The Cat". The Toronto Port Authority officially opened the International Marine Passenger Terminal on June 27, 2005, three days before ferry service resumed.[1] Even with impressive passenger numbers by the winter of 2006 the ferry service lost funding from the City of Rochester and announced that it would no longer be in business.

[edit] Sites along the waterfront

[edit] Western areas

The Humber River as it exits into Lake Ontario with the Humber Bay Arch Bridge prominent in the background.
The Humber River as it exits into Lake Ontario with the Humber Bay Arch Bridge prominent in the background.

Etobicoke Creek forms the western border of the city of Toronto dividing it with neighbouring Mississauga, and its portion of the Lake Ontario waterfront. The Etobicoke section of the lakeshore is mainly comprised of working and middle class suburbs such as Mimico, New Toronto, Humber Bay, and Long Branch. While in close proximity to the lake, these areas are also just to the south of the industrial belt surrounding the CNR rail line. Notable sights on this part of the waterfront include the lakeshore campus of Humber College, housed in a historic former asylum, and Humber Bay Park, and large park at the outlet of Mimico Creek. Both these sites have marinas.

The western border of the old city of Toronto (with Etobicoke) is marked by the Humber River. At the waterfront this river is crossed by the prominent new Humber Bay Arch Bridge. Also at this point the Gardiner Expressway begins to very closely follow the shoreline, and for much of the rest of the waterfront there is only a thin band of land between the expressway and the lakeshore. For the first few kilometres east of the Humber River this band is a very thin strip containing only parklands and Lake Shore Boulevard. To the north of the Gardiner are the High Park and Parkdale neighbourhoods.

Just east of Jameson Ave the waterfront area widens and is home to Exhibition Place with Ontario Place just to the south on three artificial islands. This area is also the former site of Fort Rouillé, one of the first European settlements in the region.

[edit] Toronto Harbour

The waterfront through downtown Toronto
The waterfront through downtown Toronto

To the east of Exhibition Place begins a long stretch of former commercial and industrial areas that are rapidly being converted into some of Toronto's most expensive residences and condominiums. Historic commercial structures such as the Tip Top Tailor Building and the Queen's Quay Terminal have been turned into luxury condominiums with waterfront views. Associated with this Queen's Quay has become home to a number of high end shops and restaurants. This area is also home to the Harbourfront Centre, a large cultural centre occupying ten acres of former industrial land including an old power plant that is now a gallery. Some large industrial structures remain though most are shut down, most prominently the imposing Canada Malting Silos. Just to the north of the Gardiner is the former railway lands that have also seen rapid development in the years since deindustrialization. This area is home to the Rogers Centre (SkyDome) and CN Tower, both of which are prominently visible from the waterfront.

Between York and Yonge Streets is a cluster of large skyscrapers, many built in the 1970s in one of the earliest attempts to revitalize the waterfront. This includes the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel and One Yonge Street. Also in this area is Captain John's Harbour Boat Restaurant, a permanently docked cruise ship that serves as a restaurant popular with tourists and the Redpath Sugar Building which remains an industrial site.

East of Yonge Street running to Cherry Street is a stretch of area known as the East Bayfront, centred around the Parliament Street slip. Currently a mix of warehouses and brownlands it is slated for development in the near future. In the next few years thousands of new residences and millions of feet of commercial space will be built there. South of this, on two large projections separated by a ship canal, is the still-operating portion of Toronto Harbour which includes docking facilities for both freight and cruise ships.

The Toronto Islands, a chain of small natural islands, form the southern border of the Inner Harbour. Most of the islands are today parkland, with a handful of permanent inhabitants. The westernmost portion of the islands are dominated by the Toronto City Centre Airport, a small regional airport. The airport is linked to the mainland by a ferry at Bathurst Street. Controversy arose in 2003 when the port authority proposed replacing the ferry with a bridge, due to concerns about increased vehicle and air traffic along the waterfront. Mayor David Miller canceled the plans for the bridge soon after winning office.

[edit] The Portlands

To the east of Cherry Street is another area that is partially industrial and partially abandoned known as the Portlands. This area is home to the shuttered Hearn Generating Station and the Portlands Energy Centre, which is currently under construction. There are long-term plans to transform this area into a mix of commercial and residential developments, but no firm proposals have been developed, except a new Film Studio sponsored by TEDCO. The southern portion of the Portlands was intended to be an outer harbour, but the demand for such a harbour never developed. Instead this area today home to Cherry Beach, while the large breakwater known as the Leslie Street Spit is today a popular park and birding area.

[edit] The Beach

East of the Portlands begins the well-known Beaches area of Toronto. This prosperous part of the city is named after the series of four connected beaches that lie along this section of the lakeshore. The western boundary of this region was once home to the Greenwood Raceway. The racetrack was demolished in the 1990s and a new residential neighbourhood was constructed in its stead. The eastern boundary is the R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant, still the source of much of Toronto's water supply and also a prominent Art Deco monument.

[edit] Eastern areas

The Scarborough Bluffs
The Scarborough Bluffs

The Scarborough portion of the waterfront is dominated by the Scarborough Bluffs, a series of cliffs that run along the lakeshore. On the top of the cliffs are a number of suburban neighbourhoods such as Cliffside, Cliffcrest, Scarborough Village, Guildwood and West Hill. This area is also home to large manicured properties such as Rosetta McClain Gardens and extensive grounds of the St. Augustine Seminary. The bluffs end at the deep ravine of Highland Creek. The most prominent site along the creek juncture with the lakeshore is Bluffer's Park, a large park and marina built on fill below the bluffs.

East of Highland Creek is Port Union, named after a Port facility that existed there from 1832 to 1873 and disappeared with the arrival of the Grand Trunk Railway (now known as the Canadian National Railway). The arrival of the railway totally destroyed the mouth of the Rouge River. There is currently restoration and regeneration work underway at the old Port Union site. Between Highland Creek and Chesterton Shores west of the Rouge River is the old site of Port Union so named due to the existence of a Port facility that existed there from 1832 to 1873. The community was centered on the Adams Creek which was the site of a local ship builder who worked for the local merchants in the area which also had a winter harbour up the mouth of the Rouge River Valley. This little harbour disappeared in the late 1870’s with the arrival of the Grand Trunk Railway now known as CN. Canadian National Railway The removal of the harbour and the creation of the railway berm at the Rouge River created a marsh area, the infamous wet lands, north of the current bridge which became an environmental disaster totally destroying the mouth of the Rouge River.

To the east, the lakeshore intersects with the border of the City of Toronto and Pickering at the Rouge River delta and the wetlands created by the Grand Trunk in 1885.

[edit] Revitalization plans

In late 1999, the most recent plans to revitalise the central area of the Waterfront (limited to that located between Dufferin Street and Leslie Street) were unveiled and the Toronto Waterfront Revitalisation Corporation -TWRC was set up. The corporation is guided by a nine-member board of directors with three members appointed by each of the three (Federal, Provincial and Municipal) levels of government. All three levels appointed the Chair, President and Chief Financial Officer with the first two Robert Fung and John Campbell receiving an annual salary of $300,000+ . In 2003, the corporation appointed a new CEO and President. The annual budget for the Toronto Waterfront is $17 billion with the vast majority of funds focused on the central Toronto waterfront. As of January 2008 no actual development has occurred in the form of residential, institutional or commercial buildings.

The current revitalisation exercise has seen some progress on planning for areas such as the East Bayfront (Yonge Street to Cherry Street) and the West Don Lands (North of the railway tracks and between Parliament Street and the Don River).

There have been concerns raised in the community that ecology is being put behind the drive for city building. There is also concern that projects are moving forward without a sustainable integrated energy strategy, even though the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation (TWRC) budgeted $50 million dollars to undertake such a study early on in the process. The Province of Ontario knowing full well the "black" nature of the sub-soil and land has agreed with the Federal Government to waive all environmental studies in order to move development along. Most people know the pollution is there, including the Federal Government which donated the land to the City of Toronto as a 1967 Centennial gift.

Anti-poverty activists have also questioned plans that do not include subsidized housing or help for the poor.

With the restructuring at the city, the new department responsible for the waterfront is now the Toronto Waterfront Secretariat Division which now competes directly with the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corp. Nonetheless, other organizations from the city and the Province have undertaken activities in the absence of results from the TWRC. Those include a city beach (HTo Park) by the city's own Parks Department, a Film Studio in the Portlands by the Toronto Economic Development Corporation (TEDCO), a Soccer Stadium by the Exhibition Place Corporation, a flood control berm in the former Ataratiri lands by the Ontario Realty Corporation (ORC) and a federally-funded Rowing Course in the Western Beaches completed by the TRCA.

[edit] Central Waterfront Innovative Design Competition

The Toronto Waterfront has seen at least 15 design charettes over the last 65 years, the most recent being the Innovative Design Competition for the Central Waterfront took place in 2006. This charette was won by a team led by West 8, an architecture firm from Rotterdam in joint venture with DTAH (du Toit Allsopp Hillier), a Toronto architecture, landscape architecture and urban design firm.[2]The plan aims to provide a bold new face for the central waterfront. The design includes a wide promenade along the water and extensive green space. Bridges rising from the boardwalk and spanning the ends of the slips will provide continuous public access to the lakeshore. In the scheme, the southern half of Queens Quay will be turned into a pedestrian walkway[3] which the architect envisions will become Toronto's version of the La Rambla, Barcelona's celebrated pedestrian route. The proposal also emphasizes the need for stronger north-south connections between the harbour and the downtown core. The first phase is to be completed by 2008 provided that proper funding is secured. As of January 2008 no such work has been undertaken but private developers have begun construction of a condominium complex at the foot of Yonge Street and TEDCO started construction of a Toronto headquarters for media company Corus Entertainment Inc.

[edit] Major issues

  • Some see the Gardiner Expressway, a raised highway that runs just north of the lakeshore, as a major obstacle to waterfront redevelopment. The highway is often seen as both a physical and psychological barrier for pedestrians that separates the city from the lake. Proposals call for the highway to be replaced with an at-grade level 10-lane thoroughfare or burying it (tunnelling), but implementation of any such plans would be extremely expensive and would entail massive traffic disruptions. Others claim that the railway lines just north of the Gardiner are the real barrier, and still others see the condominium towers built along the waterfront in the 1990s and 2000s as either a barrier, or contributing to the separation.
  • The Front Street Extension is a planned extension of Front Street and by far the most expensive road ever proposed in Canada, with an estimated cost of $170 million for two kilometres. The extension is contentious and has been debated as a planning issue since 1983 when it was first proposed.
  • The Portlands Energy Centre is a recently approved natural gas electrical generating station, which has met with large-scale local community opposition.
  • The Toronto City Centre Airport generates both strong opposition and strong support from different groups both inside and outside the city, and was a major issue in the 2003 municipal election. Opposition by residents prevented the building of a bridge, but the federal government paid a $35 million (CAD) out-of-court settlement to the affected parties, part of which may have helped launch Porter Airlines. Over the past decades there have been no plans announced to expand the size of the airport, which serves only propeller aircraft.
  • Renaturalization of the Don River mouth. The lower Don Lands are planned to be "renaturalised" and the surrounding flood plain area, including the downtown core, will be flood-proofed by building a berm (a plan that was first proposed in the early 60's by City Planner Eric Arthurs). There is currently an environmental assessment underway on this proposal which was waived by the Province. Ecologists are calling for a return to the lacustrine marsh that existed in Ashbridges Bay prior to extensive land filling done from the late 19th century on.
  • The needs of existing recreational stakeholders. For over thirty years, several sailing, rowing, and windsurfing clubs have been using the area east of Cherry Beach and south of Unwin Avenue. These volunteer-run clubs, comprised collectively of up to 2,000 members, have spent many years building up physical and recreational infrastructure which would be difficult to replicate elsewhere. Many of the plans proposed for this area have literally written these clubs off the map.

[edit] Wharfs and Piers

Wharfs existed along Toronto's waterfront in the 19th Century, but they have since been replaced by quays. Most of the former wharfs disappeared when the waterfront was filled in along with the now "missing" Creeks of Toronto.

A list of former wharfs along the central waterfront:

  • Dufferin Street Wharf
  • Queen's Wharf - Bathurst Street
  • Conner's Wharf - York Street
  • Millous Wharf - Yonge Street
  • Hamilton Wharf - Church Street
  • Sylvester Brothers and Hickman's Wharf - Church Street
  • Northern Railway Wharf and Elevator - Portland Street
  • Taylor's Wharf - George Street
  • Hogarty and Grussett Wharf and Elevator - Simcoe Street
  • Walsh and Love's Wharf - Simcoe Street
  • Tinning's Wharf - York Street
  • Higginbotham's Wharf - Yonge Street
  • Manson's Wharf - Market Street
  • Toronto and Northern Railway Wharf - Berkerley Street
  • Gooderham's Wharf and Elevator - Don River

A list of current quays/slips along the waterfront:

  • Bathurst Quay
  • Maple Leaf Quay
  • John Quay
  • York Quay
  • Queen's Quay
  • Yonge Quay
  • Rees St. Slip
  • Simcoe St. Slip

[edit] Timeline

  • 1793 - John Graves Simcoe orders the building of Fort York to guard the western entrance (then, the only entrance) to the harbour.
  • 1813 - American forces capture and burn the fort at the Battle of York
  • 1832 - Construction of the Gooderham & Worts distillery to the west of the Don River mouth which grew to become the world's largest distillery.
  • 1858 - a violent storm rips a gap in the base of the Leslie spit — the gap later becomes the eastern channel.
  • 1890s - First undertaken as a sanitary works project, channelization of the lower Don begins, first the mouth is straightened directly southward (Ainsworth Cut).
  • 1911 - Toronto Harbour Commission created to manage port infrastructure and work on resolve the Don River mouth alignments.
  • 1922 - Construction of the Keating Channel is completed in order to allow large container vessels deeper water access closer to the Don mouth and nearby industry.
  • 1935 - Construction begins on a tunnel from the end of Stadium Road to the western sandbar (a future airport site) as a depression relief project; it is abandoned several weeks later after a change of federal government.
  • 1939 -After 11 years of planning and two years of construction, the Port George VI Airfield (later Toronto City Centre Airport) opens on the western sandbar, near the foot of Bathurst Street (a second airport, later Toronto Pearson International Airport, opened in Malton two years earlier)
  • 1940–43 - The Royal Norwegian Air Force trains at the Island Airport during the Nazi occupation of Norway.
  • 1949 - While docked at pier 9, the luxury cruise ship SS Noronic catches fire and burns, killing over 118 people and effectively ending the golden age of passenger cruise ships traversing the Great Lakes.
  • 1954 - Hurricane Hazel changes the topography of the harbour, splintering the main island into several smaller islands.
  • 1971 - Ontario Place opens, on man-made islands to the West of the Toronto Islands
  • 1972 - Harbourfront Centre is established by the Federal Government
  • 1988 - Royal Commission set-up to formulate a plan for Toronto's harbour
  • 1999 - Then Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, Premier Mike Harris and Mayor Mel Lastman announced at a press conference the formation of the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Task Force
  • 1999 - Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation is established; Toronto Port Authority created to replace the Toronto Harbour Commission
  • 2000 - The (Robert Fung) Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Task Force Report was released to the public
  • 2004 - The Rochester/Toronto Ferry starts service in May and ends in November
  • 2006 - The Rochester/Toronto Ferry announces that it will no longer be in business
  • 2006 - TEDCO and its partners Rose Corp and Toronto Film Studios begin construction of a new Film Studio ("Filmport") in the Portlands set to open in Spring 2008
  • 2006 - The Ontario Government proposes a new electrical generation plant in the port lands (Portlands Energy Centre)
  • 2006 - REGCO Holdings signs a 25 year deal with the Toronto Port Authority to run an airline service out of the island airport (Porter Airlines)
  • 2007 - TEDCO begins construction of a LEED Gold office building for media company Corus Entertainment at the foot of Jarvis Street

[edit] Gallery

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050628/NEWS01/506280334/-1/SPECIALS0201
  2. ^ West 8 Wins Waterfront Corp. Design Competition. City of Toronto: News releases (2006-06-02). Retrieved on 2007-03-18.
  3. ^ du Toit Allsopp Hiller. The Multiple Waterfront. Retrieved on 2007-03-18.

[edit] See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

[edit] External links


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