[URBAN NOTE] The Liberation of Dufferin Street

[rfmcdonald]

In my years in Toronto, Dufferin Street has always featured somehow for me, as a transportation corridor and as a route that ties together different neighbours, like (as Wikipedia suggests) Little Italy on College Street and Corso Italia on St. Clair Avenue. North of Queen Street, though, Dufferin is cut in two by the railway tracks, forcing traffic to redirect down what were once and are still residential streets. This division is about to be healed.

By next spring, workers will begin to build a 72-metre tunnel that will finally rejoin Dufferin St., whose two segments have been split for more than a century, forcing the navigation of the so-called "Dufferin Jog" around adjacent Gladstone and Peel Aves. just to get from one side to the other.

While there are still concerns among locals about the project, they mostly relate to the tunnel's artistic design and heritage components, and the inevitable traffic volume increases a straightened-out Dufferin St. will lead to. A handful of residents also wonder how cash-strapped Toronto can afford it.

At the meeting, mostly it was cautious acceptance from a community deeply wary of the fast-paced changes that many feel are eviscerating the artistic and bohemian life from the neighbourhood – the very elements that bring people there.

"I've been to project meetings where people are against something and let me tell you, they let you know loud and clear," says area councillor Adam Giambrone (Ward 18, Davenport). "This was pretty positive."

Perhaps the single biggest reason for the sentiment is the fact that the city has, in fact, been planning to eliminate the jog for more than 40 years. "I remember hearing about it as a boy," recalls Fred Mackie, now 62 and a lifelong area resident. "So why finally now? Probably it's the amount of traffic has gotten so much heavier. Eliminating that problem is good."

Many residents are concerned about safety. Along with an increasing number of cars taking the jog, the Dufferin bus now carries nearly 44,000 passengers a day, and the Queen streetcar 35,000.

The jog has three to four times more traffic accidents than a single intersection would, says engineering consultant Thomas Woods of Delcan, the Markham firm leading the project. Cyclists have been killed in the area and recently a bus took out a tree in front of the Gladstone Hotel as it tried to make a turn onto the jog.

There is some concern, as the Toronto Star article noted, about spending an estimated $32 million dollar cost on the project at a time when the city of Toronto's in the middle of a financial crisis, but it seems like the neighbourhoods involved support it.