Lost Road and Bridge: Lawrence Avenue

[doady]

I think rerouting Derry thorugh a conservation area was just dumb. They should have just bulldozed Meadowvale Village.

 

[Chuck]

Well, a couple of points here... the idea of the pole was meant to be illustrative, not literal. Anything can serve as a "pole", not just the actual axis of the earth. It could be "that lonesome pine there yonder on the horizon". The closer you are to it, the greater the variance is going to be as you approach it (if you WERE using the North Pole and surveying from 15 or 20 miles away from it, you can see that the convergences would become pronounced very quickly; that's the principle I was getting at). Nobody surveying farmland in southern Ontario would actually survey it using the North Pole as their fixed reference point. For one thing, the wouldn't be able to see it. You'd pick a terrain feature and survey relative to it. Since it's going to be in line of sight, the errors moving from range line to range line are going to be far greater than ones that would accrue if you actually could use the North Pole as a fixed reference point for 43 degrees and change north of the equator. That's why the jogs come so frequently, are so pronounced, and don't occur at exactly the same ratios in every survey (the distance to the geographical reference points aren't fixed). They're all pretty unique relative to each other.

That's very true, except it is irrelevant when it comes to surveying. Why? Because surveying is not done this way! An azimuth (surveying term for bearing or direction) for both north south and east west concessions would have been selected in order to ensure that all concessions are parallel. Surveying is a precise science, and it is not based on "some lonesome pine there yonder on the horizon". I strongly recommend that you read a book about surveying, or even better get some hands on experience.

 

[Lone Primate]

I think rerouting Derry thorugh a conservation area was just dumb. They should have just bulldozed Meadowvale Village.

That one kind of puzzled me too when I saw it proposed. Seemed like some conservation effort or the other was going to get it in the neck no matter which way then went. But really, Meadowvale Village really wasn't suited to the kind of expansion they were proposing. And even if they didn't care for the historic value of the place, it still would have been a lot more expensive to buy up all those properties than to use Conservation Authority land.

 

[Dan416]

They could have just built New Derry Road and the Mavis Road extension and left Second Line and Creditview as is (was). Second Line I don't lament so much, since it never had a proper name anyway, but Creditview is a proper name and was used in both Mississauga and Brampton. Now there's just bits of Creditview here and there, none of which connect anymore. It's just stupid. If Toronto was like that, the two pieces of Dufferin at Queen would never be reconnected again, but TO is being smart and making Dufferin go in a straight line there again. I might add that in that area, there is an intersection of Dufferin and Peel Sts., which, if you went to school in the Dufferin-Peel board, is somewhat amusing.

 

[adma]

Is anyone begging for St. Clair to be joined across the Don Valley?

 

[Edward Skira]

Now that would be one major bridge.

 

[Lone Primate]

Is anyone begging for St. Clair to be joined across the Don Valley?

I thought I saw something like that proposed on that "Get Toronto Moving" website, or whatever it's called. Nice to have a complete grid system, I know, but really...

 

[Lone Primate]

They could have just built New Derry Road and the Mavis Road extension and left Second Line and Creditview as is (was).

I'm sorry to see them go, too, but I understand the thinking behind it. Neither one of them really takes you anywhere now that they've been bisected by the 407 (and in Second Line's case, the new stretch of Derry Road)... certainly no place Mavis and Mississauga Road don't. At the other end, there's the consideration of the bridges over the 401 (and it's a blessing they even had those; Fifth Line was simply cut in two, as was even Pharmacy Avenue in Scarborough). They don't have interchanges so they're not really indispensable; they're very old now and sooner or later, they're going to have to be removed. It seems to me no one wants the expense and trouble of rebuilding them, particularly when they're trying to limit the amount of traffic that transits through Meadowvale Village in the first place. I imagine sooner or later they'll just close the bridges to traffic, and ultimately tear them down some weekend, possibly (hopefully) replacing them with much less expensive footbridges for the convenience of local residents.

Get your joy trips in while you can.

 

[adma]

(and it's a blessing they even had those; Fifth Line was simply cut in two, as was even Pharmacy Avenue in Scarborough).

So was Brimley, until about a generation ago. But you can't beat Bellamy being cut in two *thrice*--by the Eglinton rail crossing, by the 401, and by the rail yards north of it. (At least, until they renamed everything north of the 401--but it was all once Bellamy, even the N-S part of Middlefield...)

OTOH the persistence of the Conlins bridge is puzzling...

 

[Dan416]

Hmm the 401 and 407 have really had a negative impact on the street grid. And with Mississauga awash in highways, I guess it's no surprise so many of our streets got cut up.

 

[TKTKTK]

Oh the street grid, oh the street grid. Am I the only one who gets bored driving in a straight line all the time?

 

[Lone Primate]

Can't believe I never added these once I had them.

Ladies and gentlemen... the Lawrence Avenue East bridge over the East Don River, till circa 1963.

 

[donoreo]

I took a few of the current view of the abutments for this bridge. I am not at home now, but I will find them later.

 

[Lone Primate]

I took a few of the current view of the abutments for this bridge. I am not at home now, but I will find them later.

Yeah, the eastern one has finally fallen into the riverbed. Hard to believe when you look at the photos from 50s... both of them there at the edge of the river. But the river carved its way behind the eastern one; when I took shots of it ten years ago it was standing most of a dozen feet away from the bank. Meanwhile, the western abutment is so silted-in now that you can barely see it.

But there you go! Can you imagine? This ONE-LANE bridge served the traffic on Lawrence Avenue less than a mile from Don Mills for about ten years. It really boggles the mind.

 

[donoreo]

Yeah, the eastern one has finally fallen into the riverbed. Hard to believe when you look at the photos from 50s... both of them there at the edge of the river. But the river carved its way behind the eastern one; when I took shots of it ten years ago it was standing most of a dozen feet away from the bank. Meanwhile, the western abutment is so silted-in now that you can barely see it.

But there you go! Can you imagine? This ONE-LANE bridge served the traffic on Lawrence Avenue less than a mile from Don Mills for about ten years. It really boggles the mind.

I have not had a chance to look yet, sorry! There was probably not much traffic going over this bridge because...there was no where to go east of the Don in this area. There was just not much there.