Legitimize plaza’s direct route
The shortest path from one point to another may not always be the preferred route, unless you happen to be the one using it.
That’s the situation at a shopping centre on Eglinton Ave., between Warden and Pharmacy Aves., where customers have worn ruts into an embankment while taking the most direct route between the sidewalk and the stores.
The Smart Centre on the north side of Eglinton includes a Walmart and a lot of other popular stores. People who get off the bus at Eglinton and Pharmacy walk east along the sidewalk to get to the plaza.
But to access the official pedestrian entrance involves walking about 100 metres east of the path on the embankment. Walmart customers must then walk about 200 metres back in the direction from which they came to get to the store.
Karen Newton emailed to say she often walks from the bus stop at Eglinton and Pharmacy to the plaza and thinks the rutted path should be replaced by a permanent entrance that legitimizes the shortcut.
People who use the official entrance “have to walk along Eglinton well past Walmart, then backtrack through the parking lot,” to get back to the Walmart, said Newton.
“It is a long, very cold walk in the winter. People have made a path where there needs to be one,” she said, noting that the plaza management put up signs that say, “This is not a walkway.” Somebody wrote on it, “Make one.” “There needs to be an entrance to Walmart that is not on the far side of the parking lot. Not everyone has a car. I use the ‘not a walkway’ every week. It leads to a (bank) drive-thru, which I have never seen anyone use,” said Newton. We went there and watched a steady stream of customers using the path to get between the sidewalk and the plaza, including an elderly man who wobbled down the hill while pushing a walker.
It’s obvious to us that the plaza needs a more direct pedestrian route into it, but who’s responsible for it? Status: Part of the area between the sidewalk and the plaza is a city of Toronto right-of-way. Any stairs or path would require city approval, even if the city refused to build it. We’ve asked transportation services if it would consider building an entrance or even grant approval for the plaza to build it. But so far, nobody wants to step up and make a call on it. What’s broken in your neighbourhood? Wherever you are in Greater Toronto, we want to know. To contact us, go to thestar.com/yourtoronto/the_fixer, call us at 416-869-4823 or email jlakey@thestar.ca.