Hipster Duck
Senior Member
Part III
1946-1965 - Automobile planning: The Trunk and Ring Roads. The "New Town" phenomenon
In a gesture of goodwill for Canada's part in liberating Holland from the Nazis, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands created the "Wilhelmina Scholars", a program that granted top Canadian and Dutch students scholarships for their studies at higher institutions in each others' country, as well as generous sabbaticals for visiting professors. One product of this cultural exchange was the cross-fertilization of urban planning ideas, such that Canada's cities began to eschew Amero-centric planning in favour of modern Dutch planning principles.
Following the postwar "baby boom", as well as higher immigration rates, Toronto was entering its second boom (the last being the pre WW1 boom that coincided with the development of the first electric railway suburbs). To accommodate this growth, Canadian and Dutch planners jointly proposed the creation of modernist "New Towns" scattered in the remaining undeveloped areas of the City-Province of Toronto and just beyond the provincial boundary in the rapidly growing suburban belt of Southern Ontario. The new towns were almost identical to those found in the Low Countries or orbiting London (such as Milton-Keynes). The layout was commercial at the centre with a pedestrian "town centre" situated on a major rail line, but would quickly lower in density to encompass modernist apartment blocks, townhouses and single family bungalows surrounded by generous farmland.
The TTA (see Part II) chose to link the dozen New Towns to Toronto and with each other using a series of trunk roads - six lane surface arterials with an unusually wide median (300 ft in some cases) that were intended as rights of way for future expressways. The objective was for the trunk roads to serve as the primary arterials until demand warranted a toll expressway, at which point the former surface roads would serve as "service roads" following the examples found in Houston, Montreal and along the Queen Elizabeth Turnpike (see part II). Some major trunk roads, most notably the 3rd ring road (the first "ring" was unofficially James Craig's Royal Mile (see Pt 1), the second ring was Daniel Burnham's "Grand Parkway", constructed in 1919).
were converted to service/expressway operation. 1950s expressway standards and the sharper turns that these roads followed due to being enclosed within surface arterials meant that many of these roads had to be reconfigured in the early 1990s to meet freeway standards.
At the same time, an effort was made to expand roadways into the downtown core. However, this proved to be a challenge, because downtown remained an enclave of the wealthy, powerful elite, many of whom lived in the genteel neighbourhoods along the waterfront that Daniel Burnham had carved out nearly a half century before. To appease downtown interests, commisioner of the TTA Frederick Gardiner chose to tunnel the waterfront expressway underneath wealthy areas. The new expressway opened in 1966 - 5 years behind schedule and at nearly 3 times its original cost. Most controversially, Gardiner planned a combined intermodal rail and bus depot that would take advantage of the new freeway's location in the downtown core, similar to the Port Authority's bus terminal off the Lincoln station. given its prime location, the city tore down the magnificent Niagara station and erected a combined intermodal transit station, office tower, shopping mall and new Maple Leaf Gardens in its place - one of the largest development projects in City history. This move ignited the preservation movement which succeeded in saving a number of other city properties slated for demolition. Perhaps more embarassingly, the Daily Mail reported that Gardiner himself had ties to the development corporation that was awarded the contract to build the project and stood to receive several million dollars in unauthorized kickbacks. Amid scandal, Gardiner was forced to resign in disgrace and the freeway plan for the rest of Toronto was scrapped.
Air travel emerged in Toronto during this period, as well. The aerodrome at Downsview which had served Toronto's flying needs since 1926 was deemed too small to accommodate expansion, and a new site was sought. In 1956, the Federal Government and the City jointly selected a large, undeveloped site near Malton which would serve both military and commercial aviation purposes. Eero Saarinen was commissioned to build a new terminal building capable of handling up to 5 million passengers a year. While the airport has vastly outgrown Saarinen's original plans (the air base was closed by the DND in 1993), the current terminal building (a heritage building) now houses the offices of the GTAA and sits someone detached from the much larger terminal buildings that have grown up around it.
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Continued in Part IV
1946-1965 - Automobile planning: The Trunk and Ring Roads. The "New Town" phenomenon
In a gesture of goodwill for Canada's part in liberating Holland from the Nazis, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands created the "Wilhelmina Scholars", a program that granted top Canadian and Dutch students scholarships for their studies at higher institutions in each others' country, as well as generous sabbaticals for visiting professors. One product of this cultural exchange was the cross-fertilization of urban planning ideas, such that Canada's cities began to eschew Amero-centric planning in favour of modern Dutch planning principles.
Following the postwar "baby boom", as well as higher immigration rates, Toronto was entering its second boom (the last being the pre WW1 boom that coincided with the development of the first electric railway suburbs). To accommodate this growth, Canadian and Dutch planners jointly proposed the creation of modernist "New Towns" scattered in the remaining undeveloped areas of the City-Province of Toronto and just beyond the provincial boundary in the rapidly growing suburban belt of Southern Ontario. The new towns were almost identical to those found in the Low Countries or orbiting London (such as Milton-Keynes). The layout was commercial at the centre with a pedestrian "town centre" situated on a major rail line, but would quickly lower in density to encompass modernist apartment blocks, townhouses and single family bungalows surrounded by generous farmland.
The TTA (see Part II) chose to link the dozen New Towns to Toronto and with each other using a series of trunk roads - six lane surface arterials with an unusually wide median (300 ft in some cases) that were intended as rights of way for future expressways. The objective was for the trunk roads to serve as the primary arterials until demand warranted a toll expressway, at which point the former surface roads would serve as "service roads" following the examples found in Houston, Montreal and along the Queen Elizabeth Turnpike (see part II). Some major trunk roads, most notably the 3rd ring road (the first "ring" was unofficially James Craig's Royal Mile (see Pt 1), the second ring was Daniel Burnham's "Grand Parkway", constructed in 1919).
were converted to service/expressway operation. 1950s expressway standards and the sharper turns that these roads followed due to being enclosed within surface arterials meant that many of these roads had to be reconfigured in the early 1990s to meet freeway standards.
At the same time, an effort was made to expand roadways into the downtown core. However, this proved to be a challenge, because downtown remained an enclave of the wealthy, powerful elite, many of whom lived in the genteel neighbourhoods along the waterfront that Daniel Burnham had carved out nearly a half century before. To appease downtown interests, commisioner of the TTA Frederick Gardiner chose to tunnel the waterfront expressway underneath wealthy areas. The new expressway opened in 1966 - 5 years behind schedule and at nearly 3 times its original cost. Most controversially, Gardiner planned a combined intermodal rail and bus depot that would take advantage of the new freeway's location in the downtown core, similar to the Port Authority's bus terminal off the Lincoln station. given its prime location, the city tore down the magnificent Niagara station and erected a combined intermodal transit station, office tower, shopping mall and new Maple Leaf Gardens in its place - one of the largest development projects in City history. This move ignited the preservation movement which succeeded in saving a number of other city properties slated for demolition. Perhaps more embarassingly, the Daily Mail reported that Gardiner himself had ties to the development corporation that was awarded the contract to build the project and stood to receive several million dollars in unauthorized kickbacks. Amid scandal, Gardiner was forced to resign in disgrace and the freeway plan for the rest of Toronto was scrapped.
Air travel emerged in Toronto during this period, as well. The aerodrome at Downsview which had served Toronto's flying needs since 1926 was deemed too small to accommodate expansion, and a new site was sought. In 1956, the Federal Government and the City jointly selected a large, undeveloped site near Malton which would serve both military and commercial aviation purposes. Eero Saarinen was commissioned to build a new terminal building capable of handling up to 5 million passengers a year. While the airport has vastly outgrown Saarinen's original plans (the air base was closed by the DND in 1993), the current terminal building (a heritage building) now houses the offices of the GTAA and sits someone detached from the much larger terminal buildings that have grown up around it.
---
Continued in Part IV
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