What if cooler heads didn't prevail in 1971?

[urbanfan89]

Here's an interesting what-if scenario: what if back when they were planning the Spadina Expressway, civic opposition was not enough to make Bill Davis to withdraw support for the project, and Metro did proceed with a giant canyon by wiping out the Annex and Chinatown? What if, a week later, the TTC decided to proceed with its plan to completely do away with streetcars?

Would the downtown core become a ghetto? How far would sprawl go to right now? How would the city's reputation for neighbourhood liveliness fade? Would we become like Atlanta or Detroit?

 

[Hydrogen]

Well, the first time I ever came to spend some time in Toronto many, many years ago, I got lost in the Annex and had a great time wandering through it back to U of T. I suppose if it were not there I would have a totally different first impression of the city.

Expressways don't always light up the imagination.

 

[allabootmatt]

I'm not sure how bad things would have been. I mean, Montreal built a *ton* of similar urban expressways, and got rid of streetcars. And they're just fine.

 

[jamesbow]

I think the situation might be analogous to Chicago rather than, say, Detroit. Toronto had several lucky strikes throughout the seventies, of which the decision to maintain its streetcars and abandon expressway construction were only two. The fact that Montreal's commercial wealth emptied out of that city following the 1976 election of the Parti Quebecois would probably keep the downtown core hopping, although it would be far more 9-to-5 in character than a place to live in. I think in the eighties and the nineties, we would have had even greater concerns about downtown urban decay and white flight. The neighbourhoods like the Annex and Chinatown did a lot to ensure that the downtown remained a decent place to live.

But, just like Chicago, which experienced downtown decay, the residents would likely come back, drawn by the available transit in the subways.

Toronto's fate and Chicago's have followed similar paths, I've found, except that Toronto never fell as far, and Chicago had Frank Lloyd Wright.

If we're talking about what if threads, here's another article: What if the Queen subway had been built instead of the Bloor-Danforth:

http://transit.toronto.on.ca/streetcar/4016.shtml

 

[adma]

And forget downtown; also account for the surrounding zones. And remember that Chicago *proper* has more people than ex-Metro Toronto...

 

[allabootmatt]

True, but the urban/suburban split is pretty much the same, if even more urban in Toronto (megacity's case). Huge swathes of the City of Chicago are totally suburban--even very close to the Loop.

 

[adma]

Though "suburban" more in a pre-WWII than post-WWII sense. (Then again, "pre-WWII sense" also describes whatever Downtown North York's been displacing over the past generation...)

 

[scarberiankhatru]

We also couldn't have become like Detroit or Atlanta without hundreds of thousands of black people...racial dynamics just can't be compared that easily.

Though "suburban" more in a pre-WWII than post-WWII sense. (Then again, "pre-WWII sense" also describes whatever Downtown North York's been displacing over the past generation...)

Yes...for example, Willowdale and Don Mills were built at essentially the same time; while both were suburban, only the latter was "suburbia."

 

[Hipster Duck]

Here's an interesting what-if scenario: what if back when they were planning the Spadina Expressway, civic opposition was not enough to make Bill Davis to withdraw support for the project, and Metro did proceed with a giant canyon by wiping out the Annex and Chinatown?

It would have been a disaster. The 4-lane trench would be perennially jammed and would have been a bigger death trap than its other bathtub cousin, the Decarie. The neighbourhoods would be gone, just like how the area between Westmount and NDG around the Decarie is sort of a gray zone despite being sandwiched by two rather upscale neighbourhoods. Because the affected neighbourhoods would have included Cedarvale, the Annex, Kensington Market and the Warehouse/Entertainment district, it would have wiped out a very good chunk of Toronto's desirable urban stock. Downtown would have essentially been 'walled off' on three sides: by the Gardiner, the DVP and by the Spadina Expwy.

Would the downtown core become a ghetto?

No, probably more like Chicago or Boston. The downtown residential component was already established in very dense high-rise neighbourhoods.

How far would sprawl go to right now?

Probably no further than it does already.

How would the city's reputation for neighbourhood liveliness fade?

We would have lamented how we amputated our most desirable neighbourhoods, but the city's urban neighbourhoods extend for miles and Torontonians are still agoraphiles at heart. We would be like Bostonians who still have a good chunk of their urban form and delight in its urbanity, but completely trashed their West End and split their downtown in two.

Would we become like Atlanta or Detroit?

Neither. We don't have the racial politics/factory town decline of Detroit and Atlanta is not a city so much as a collection of exurban edge cities congregating around an airport and a business park downtown. A comparison to Chicago or Boston post-Central Artery is more apt.

What if, a week later, the TTC decided to proceed with its plan to completely do away with streetcars?

I don't particularly like streetcars as a method of transport so I'm going to say that apart from a loss of history, we would not have suffered overall. Certainly if a Queen subway would have been built, the appeal of transit would have gone up, rather than down. On the other hand, had we abandoned the streetcars, built the Queen subway but not built the Spadina freeway we would be - get this - better off than we are today. Every downtown neighbourhood would be within 1 km (15 minute walk) of a subway line.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Life goes on. People adapt. Edge Lofts are in a horrible location, facing the DVP and two elevated ramps, but they're being built. Pinnacle and 18 Yonge speak to the same hardy pioneering spirit.

Macy Dubois designed New College in the late 1960s with the expectation that the Spadina Expressway would run right past it. His design solution was to turn the building inwards, the windows facing onto a treed and grassy central courtyard and away from Spadina.

 

[Observer Walt]

Shocker's point is well taken. I also think of the Decarie Expressway in the west end of Montreal. It's unattractive and I wouldn't want to live directly overlooking it, but I am familiar with streets just a couple of blocks to the west, which seem perfectly liveable and do not appear to suffer from the proximity of the expressway.

Not that I would have been in favour of the Spadina Expressway, it represents yesterday's thinking. I'm glad it didn't get built. But it would not have been the end of the world.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Just the end of 1 Spadina Crescent, presumably.

 

[Edward Skira]

But then there's the example of the Cross Bronx Expressway that to this day has a major negative effect on the Bronx. Better that we didn't need to find out.

 

[W. K. Lis]

I think that a lot of the older buildings would have been torn down and replaced with parking garages.

When I was in Atlanta, I noticed that there were many, many such garages and parking lots. And, come 6 pm, there were no people downtown, unless you were there for an convention. Saturday was the same, nobody around.

As well, the subway branches (MARTA) were every 15 to 20 minutes on Saturday and Sunday, combining from 7 to 10 minutes. Even though the transit subsidy was greater than Toronto's, there were not a lot of people on it.

 

[Chuck]

I'd hate to see Toronto without streetcars, though at the same time I would like to see an underground highway connection between downtown and the base of the 400 or Allen Road. Such a highway would likely not improve rush hour traffic to any extent, however it would remove a ton of cars from local streets such as Avenue Road, Bathurst, Weston Road, and the entire west end in general. It would also make off-peak travel a breeze.

I think that the best case scenario for Toronto would be a Queen subway, more streetcar right of ways, more streetcars in general, less buses, and either an underground Spadina Expressway or upgrading Black Creek Drive to an all out 400 series highway with an underground extension to the downtown area.

I believe that transit improvements help the city the most, however road improvements are also increase the desirability of the CDB when they fill a current void in the transportation system. The DRL is to transit as the Spadina Expressway is to GTA highways. Both fill a seriously lacking link in their respective transportation networks.