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Over the summer, the repaving of Toronto's Yorkville Avenue between Bay Street and Avenue Road rendered much of the street impassable for cars for much of the time, while pedestrians walking down the tony street would have run into a lot more dust and dirt than they would have preferred.
With only a few remaining small tasks to complete and with the street now fully reopened, the repaving efforts have greatly improved the local streetscape with major aesthetic and practical improvements to the road and sidewalks. Public realm upgrades have also included new benches, street trees, and planters. The work, with a substantial financial contribution from the Bloor-Yorkville Business Improvement Area (BIA), follows underground infrastructure work by the City which caused Yorkville Avenue to be torn up.
When we last visited Yorkville Avenue for an update on the repaving efforts, installation of the west section of road and sidewalk had recently been completed, and work had just gotten under way on installing the pavers to the east, between Bellair and Bay. Now complete, the section between Bellair and Bay was especially challenging for construction crews due to the presence of many driveway access points.
Arranged in a herringbone pattern with clay-toned bricks added to the mix as warming accents, the new paving adds some old-time charm to the street, complementing the mostly intimately scaled architecture of the area.
On Bellair, the installation of new sidewalk pavers, grey granite curb edge pavers, and a new asphalt road surface is now complete, while the last remnants of construction remain scattered along the roadside, soon to be whisked away.
While the Bloor-Yorkville BIA has a long-term goal of replicating the new paving treatment on Bellair and Cumberland Streets, a date for that work is not expected until after the completion of Minto's Yorkville Park development, demolition work for which is just getting under way at the corner of Bellair and Cumberland.
