Becel Ride for the Heart pictures: Cyclists take over the Gardiner

This is one of our favourite things to see on a summer Sunday. We go outside on our balconys and instead of hearing cars whir by on the Gardiner, we hear something totally different. Hundreds, thousands of cyclists whizzing up and down the Gardiner and DVP for Becel's Ride for the Heart.

So we went up to snap some pictures from overhead. (Nothing like the Tamil protests recently, but for sure a sight to see)

Tamil protests shuts down the Gardiner, Queens Quay becomes 'highway'

So we noticed on the way home tonight that Queens Quay was PACKED with cars. We were wondering what was going on until we saw that there was a massive Tamil protest on the Gardiner. The police had shut down the Gardiner, much of Spadina, part of Lakeshore and we hear the DVP to Bloor.

So that means Queens Quay becomes the East-West line through the city tonight.

Here are some pictures we got

Heard around the Hood: Queens Quay in the news

A few items in the news recently about Queens Quay

The Bulletin on the off-leash park at Little Norway. "Little Norway Park at Bathurst & Queens Quay was designated off-leash on April 15th with no community consultation other than with the dog owners' association. At the community information session held last week it was already a done deal."

The National Post on lessons for New York from Toronto It references Waterfront Toronto's study on the Gardiner.

At the Toronto Sun, new Queens Quay resident Mike Strobel is beginning to beat the dead horse with his Scarborough-Queens Quay comparisons. This time on exercising on the waterfront: "It's way different downtown, I'm discovering, as the crocuses and chihuahuas bloom along Queens Quay. Two months ago, I fled the east end and landed in a wee condo at the bottom of York St."

Another Gardiner public input meeting

A note about another series of pubilc meetings on the Gardiner held by the city and Watefront Toronto. This is about what to do with the raised highway east of Jarvis.

The website where you can leave input is at www.gardinerconsultation.ca

"The team will present a summary of public input that has been received to date through Public Forum #1 and the consultation website."


Thursday, April 23, 2009
6:30 – 7:30 PM (Open House)
7:30 – 9:00 PM (Presentation)
Centennial College Residence & Conference Centre
940 Progress Avenue, Scarborough

Saturday April 25, 2009
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM (Open House)
12:00 – 1:30 PM (Presentation)
McKee Public School, Gymnasium
35 Church Avenue, North York

Monday April 27, 2009
6:30 – 7:30 PM (Open House)
7:30 – 9:00 PM (Presentation)
Dundas Junior Public School, Gymnasium
935 Dundas Street East, Toronto

Tuesday, April 28, 2009
6:30 – 7:30 PM (Open House)
7:30 – 9:00 PM (Presentation)
Etobicoke Collegiate Institute, Auditorium
86 Montgomery Road, Etobicoke

The Gardiner's future: Public meeting and consultation

As mentioned in other local news, Waterfront Toronto last week launched its process to start examining the future of the Gardiner.

Waterfront Toronto and the City of Toronto have started a new project considering the removal, replacement or improvement of the Gardiner Expressway from Jarvis Street to just east of the Don Valley Parkway.

Your input into this project is critical. We want to hear your ideas and feedback throughout this project and we’ve created this online consultation website to help you participate. When you join this community – you will have the opportunity to share your insights, learn about the issues and discuss your ideas. This consultation is being conducted in support of an environmental assessment required by the Ontario Environmental Assessment Act.

The project is soliciting comments on its website and is also holding public meetings.


Thursday, April 2, 2009
Harbourfront Community Centre – Gymnasium
627 Queens Quay West, Toronto
5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. (Open House)
7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. (Presentation)

More on the project from the Star:

Waterfront Toronto officials and Mayor David Miller want to see the elevated highway razed east of Jarvis St. and replaced with a grand boulevard, as a way to open the city to the lakefront, a move that could cost as much as $300 million.

But that can't be done until a long and costly environmental assessment process – nearly $8 million and not expected to be completed until 2011 – is done. The final decision rests with city council, not likely to tackle the issue until 2012.

An ode to the Gardiner

We'd venture to guess that Torontonians love to hate it and loathe to travel on it, that concrete highway that marks Queens Quay's northern border.

Well, like standing next to an elephant, we can't help but notice that the Gardiner is in our lives but we also tend to look the other way, to the pretty lake Ontario to our south.

Fact is, it's here and marks the point when the city ends and a new neighbourhood emerges. South of the Gardiner, in the heat waves of the summer, you almost enter a new climate, when the lake-cooled air hits you within a few steps. One could live a cozy existence south of the Gardiner but for very 'living-in-the-city' type reasons, we often cross it.

So enter Christopher Hume, urban columnist/poet, scoping up down the vast stretch in search of beauty. He recently wrote a column about the Gardiner.

It is no longer merely an elevated highway; it has become a linear subterranean ecosystem, man-made but never quite under control. In the perpetual shadow of a structure built long ago in a now dead future, newly arrived dog walkers from nearby condos rub shoulders with homeless men off for a day's begging and workers hurrying to the office.

The Lake Shore is a river, with vehicles instead of water, the Gardiner a grotto. The Convention Centre is the hilly region and utility poles stand in for the trees.

A grotto and a river? Huh, okay, snap back to it Mr. Hume.

So it's no surprise people are starting to be attracted to this troglodytic world. Far from the madding crowd, not to mention nicely protected from the cars hurtling above, this may be Toronto's final frontier. Except for the waterfront, where the landscape is heading into a period of planned evolution, the Gardiner corridor is the city's last accidental wilderness of any significance.

Given its proximity to downtown and the waterfront, and the fact that it's unlikely to be torn down, the time has come to revisit the Gardiner. Needless to say, it should be torn down, but Toronto doesn't have the political will to embark on such a bold and controversial course. In other words, this wilderness will be around for a while.

Read the rest of his column here.

Oh we don't complain as much about the Gardiner than we do, say, for certain sporting teams that are planted to the north of its shores. The National Post's Peter Kuitenbrouwer, in a podcast last summer, jokingly said this about the highway.

"The Gardiner is an incredible piece of our industrial experience... people don't see how singularly beautiful it is."

Joking aside, he also suggested that just like Tokyo has raised platforms for trains, we should look underneath them. There you'll find bars and a place to hang out. "Fundamentally I'd take it down but for the time being can we at least open a few pubs beneath it to make it palatable.

Listen to Posted Toronto Podcast on from June 2008 here.

Heard about the Hood: Media roundup

Wrapping up what's written about the waterfront. This week, focus on the eastern waterfront

Recent coverage of the neighbourhood include a list of new year's resolutions by Toronto Star's Christopher Hume, headlined New year brings opportunity to transform the city. In it, Hume says:

The transformation of the Toronto waterfront: We know, we know, nothing ever happens on the waterfront. Sometimes that definitely seems the case, but in a city where change happens at a glacial pace, there's no point in holding one's breath. Still, the impatient amongst us are waiting anxiously to see what George Brown College plans to do with its large site south of Queens Quay east of Jarvis St. This project has the scope to alter the neighbourhood dramatically and bring new vitality to the area. The campus represents the best opportunity so far to redo the central waterfront.

Another one by Hume

Indeed, there are big plans a foot for the area between Yonge Street and Cherry, long the vast undeveloped wild 'east' of the central waterfront. The National Post focuses in on projects slated for the future.

A few excerpts:

By spring, work will begin on Sugar Beach and Sherbourne Park – the area’s main green spaces. Also coming soon is the beginning of construction on the massive West Don Lands project a few blocks north, and the possible demolition of the eastern portion of the Gardiner Expressway.

The projects come after many years of discussion, and raise hopes for a vital district free of the planning mistakes of the central waterfront.

More on the organization leading this charge.

Led by Waterfront Toronto – the organization that the city, province and federal government created to manage the project – designers are attempting to reshape the area south of Queen’s Quay, between Lower Jarvis and Parliament streets, into a livable neighbourhood after years of neglect or industrial use.