Reinvigorated Front a road to enlightenment
Though not perfect, revitalized area embraces urban complexity and reveals a city in transition
Front is back. After years of construction, Toronto’s original high street, or at least the section between Bay and York by Union Station, is open again.
In the month or so since work finished, Torontonians have had a chance to check out one of the city’s first unblocked arteries. If nothing else, the new Front is a product of a different mentality, one that doesn’t ignore complexity but embraces it.
Given that the country’s busiest transit hub, Union Station, is on one side and the Fairmont Royal York hotel on the other, the street is among the busiest in Toronto. More than 250,000 people move through Union every weekday. They travel on foot, bicycles, cars, buses and cabs. Some are being dropped off, some picked up; others are going to and from work.
But until the remake, this was a street in denial. Despite the pressures, mostly from pedestrians, it was a car-only zone. Toronto police loved to launch their absurdist anti-jaywalking blitzes on Front because the pickings were so easy. Though Front probably handles more pedestrians — er, jaywalkers — than it does vehicles, the law is the law. But the law is often at odds with real life, and this was an example.
Even now, the sidewalk on the east side of Bay, just south of Front, is too narrow to deal with the rush-hour crush. Don’t forget, the GO bus terminal is also part of the mix, along with the Air Canada Centre and any number of office towers.
In other words, few precincts face pedestrian traffic as heavy as does this length of Front. This is reflected in the changes, which narrow the street to two lanes and widen sidewalks while providing plenty of lay-bys. The area in front of the station — Toronto’s grandest building and a Beaux-Arts beauty — has been enlarged to the point that it’s a small square. These days, it’s also the site of a hugely successful though inelegantly executed outdoor food market. It’s only open until Aug. 28, but the point has been made: Torontonians are hungry for new ways to inhabit the city.
Looking back, one wonders what took so long. And what about other similar opportunities, say, at Bloor and Queen’s Park in front of the Royal Ontario Museum?
Not surprisingly, however, the vehicular imperative hasn’t disappeared. The sense of entitlement that comes with a driver’s licence endures. The most obvious example is how the raised islands that run down the middle of Front have become impromptu parking lots. Unlike their predecessors, this new variation lacks planters and the usual vertical curb. Instead, the edges slope upwards like a driveway. It’s enough to convince drivers these are parking spaces. Of course, the police, unafraid and unashamed, use them, too.
It’s interesting, though, that not even small gestures like this go unnoticed and unexploited. The nature of vehicular navigation is such that it makes weasels of us all, not to mention hypocrites.
This newly installed stretch of enlightenment ends abruptly at the corners of York and Bay, both long turned into on and off ramps for the Gardiner Expressway. This is where the city meets its own contradictory nature head-on. The contrast couldn’t be starker.
More than anything, Front’s fresh face reveals a city in transition. The road from mid-century modernist madness to post-industrial urbanism runs along Front. As much as we want a new city, we’re scared of losing the old. We still expect to have our cars and drive them, too. Christopher Hume can be reached at chume@thestar.ca