Toronto waterfront

Toronto Waterfront as seen from the CN Tower (looking south east)

Toronto Waterfront at Humber Bay

The Toronto waterfront is the lakeshore of Lake Ontario in the Municipality of Toronto, Canada. It spans 46 kilometres between the mouth of Etobicoke Creek to the West and the Rouge River in the East. The entire lakeshore has been significantly altered from its natural glaciated state prior to European settlement.

History

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Foot of Yonge Street in 1910

Since the last ice age, silt deposits, borne mostly of erosion of the Scarborough Bluffs and the eluvial rivers to the east were swept by strong, natural Lake Ontario currents creating prominent fingers of land away from the lakeshore in the current central waterfront area, including the Toronto Islands. The shores of Lake Ontario (at least within present-day Toronto Harbour) are mostly landfill and extend a kilometer or some cases more from the natural shoreline.

Adding to the existing silt deposits, the Ashbridges Bay was filled in and the non-natural Portlands area (Cherry St to Leslie St) was created in the early 1900s. The bay was filled in partly due to concerns about public health – locals had disposed of sewage, farm animal carcasses and household waste in the bay for years. During this period the Don River which used to flow into the bay to the south-west was diverted (straightened) toward the harbour, first directly southward and later westward through the current configuration of the Keating Channel. Currently there are proposals to restore the original natural watercourse of the Don, which would bring it closer to the downtown core. The modern harbour area was mostly formed through landfill in the years around the First World War, to allow for deeper container vessel wharf access.

The waterfront functioned as an industrial area for many years for many of the older communities from Port Union in the east to Mimico in the west, each centered on a key river. Industry began to move out in droves the 1970s, leaving the public with heavily polluted sites (some of the main uses of the waterfront were oil and coal storage, waste disposal and incineration, and heavy manufacturing especially the Toronto centered waterfront). The first efforts at change were launched in the 1920s shortly after the War. As an important promise of the 1972 Canadian election the Federal Liberals promised to improve Toronto's waterfront. The federal government gave the heavily polluted lands to the City of Toronto, but it had no funds to clean up the 150 years of industrial pollution. Some of these buildings such as Queen's Quay Terminal and and Harbourfront Centre were remodeled, and others demolished and replaced by new structures. In this same period the industrial areas just north of the waterfront along the CN rail lines were also being abandoned and redeveloped. The nearby CN Tower and SkyDome (now Rogers Centre) were also linked to improving the area. These projects, with the exception of the tower, saw massive cost overruns and became heavily criticized.

In 1988 Prime Minister Brian Mulroney called another Royal Commission into the waterfront that was headed by former mayor David Crombie. It reported in 1992 with a detailed, but expensive plan of environmentally sound development following on the heals of his 1982-86 Toronto Waterfront Regeneration Trust Commission report. Few if any of the recommendations were carried out as had been the case during the previous 60 years.

Toronto's bids for the 1996 and 2008 Summer Olympics saw plans for much of the new facilities to be located along the waterfront, with all three levels of government committed to spending a great deal if the games were won, but on both attempts Toronto lost its bid due to the lack of diversity in facilities either planned or in situ and except for further commercial condominium development at Harbourfront offering grandiose views of the water, the waterfront was unchanged. The recent bid by Toronto for the World's Fair 2015 also planned to use waterfront sites to accommodate the fair, but this bid also failed.

In February 2006 REGCO Holdings Inc. signed a contract with the Toronto Port Authority to run an airline service out of the Toronto City Centre (island) Airport. The new airline, run by Robert Deluce, has purchased ten 70 seater Bombardier turboprop planes. Controversy has erupted in part due to Mayor David Miller's pledge to shut down the airport, but also the timing of the previously unannounced deal, right after Federal election.

Ferry service

In June 2004, the company Canadian American Transportation Systems (CATS) began regular passenger/vehicle ferry service between Pier 52 and Rochester, New York using the vessel Spirit of Ontario I. The service used a marketing name called "The Breeze". While Rochester had a custom-built ferry terminal, the Toronto terminal was a temporary facility, near the end of Cherry Street for security and customs screening facilities while a permanent marine passenger terminal was still under consideration for construction. CATS discontinued the service after only 11 weeks; among the problems cited was the absence of a permanent marine passenger terminal in Toronto and literally no Canadian interest in the service. The Toronto Economic Development Corp [TEDCO] was not properly consulted by the American interests who combined with the Mayor saw little political favour in seeing the project through from the City of Toronto's point of view. The vessel was sold in a bankruptcy sale in February 2005 to Rochester Ferry Company LLC, a subsidiary of the City of Rochester. In April 2005, Rochester Ferry Company LLC announced that the Rochester-Toronto ferry service using Spirit of Ontario I would return, operated by Bay Ferries Great Lakes Limited and using the marketing name "The Cat". The Toronto Port Authority officially opened the International Marine Passenger Terminal on June 27, 2005, three days before ferry service resumed. [1] Even with impressive passenger numbers by the winter of 2006 the ferry service lost funding from the City of Rochester and announced that it would no longer be in business.

Sites along the waterfront

Western areas

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The Humber River as it exits into Lake Ontario with the Humber Bay Arch Bridge prominent in the background.

Etobicoke Creek forms the western border of the city of Toronto dividing it with neighbouring Mississauga, and its portion of the Lake Ontario waterfront. The Etobicoke section of the lakeshore is mainly comprised of working and middle class suburbs such as Mimico, New Toronto, Humber Bay, and Long Branch. While in close proximity to the lake, these areas are also just to the south of the industrial belt surrounding the CNR rail line. Notable sights on this part of the waterfront include the lakeshore campus of Humber College, housed in a historic former asylum, and Humber Bay Park, and large park at the outlet of Mimico Creek. Both these sites have marinas.

The western border of the old city of Toronto (with Etobicoke) is marked by the Humber River. At the waterfront this river is crossed by the prominent new Humber Bay Arch Bridge. Also at this point the Gardiner Expressway begins to very closely follow the shoreline, and for much of the rest of the waterfront there is only a thin band of land between the expressway and the lakeshore, long a source of much disdain due to the perceived detachment factor between the lake and much of the rest of the city created by the expressway. For the first few kilometers east of the Humber River this band is a very thin strip containing only parklands and Lake Shore Boulevard. To the north of the Gardiner are the High Park and Parkdale neighborhoods.

Just east of Jameson Ave the waterfront area widens and is home to the large Exhibition Place complex with Ontario Place just to the south on three artificial islands. This area is also the former site of Fort Rouillé, one of the first European settlements in the region.

Toronto Harbour

The waterfront through downtown Toronto

To the west of Exhibition Place begins a long stretch of former commercial and industrial areas that are rapidly being converted into some of Toronto's most expensive residences and condominiums. Historic commercial structures such as the Tip Top Tailor Building and the Queen's Quay Terminal have been turned into luxury condominiums with waterfront views. Associated with this Queen's Quay has become home to a number of high end shops and restaurants. This area is also home to the Harbourfront Centre, a large cultural centre occupying ten acres of former industrial land including an old power plant that is now a gallery. Some large industrial structures remain though most are shut down, most prominently the imposing Canada Malting Silos. Just to the north of the Gardiner is the former railway lands that have also seen rapid development in the years since deindustrialization. This area is home to the Rogers Centre (SkyDome) and CN Tower, both of which are prominently visible from the waterfront.

Between York and Yonge Streets is a cluster of large skyscrapers, many built in the 1970s in one of the earliest attempts to revitalize the waterfront. This includes the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel and One Yonge Street. Also in this area is Captain John's Harbour Boat Restaurant, a permanently docked cruise ship that serves as a restaurant popular with tourists and the Redpath Sugar Building which remain an industrial site.

East of Yonge Street running to Cherry Street is a stretch of area known as the East Bayfront, centred around the Parliament Street slip. Currently a mix of warehouses and brownlands it is slated for the development in the near future. In the next few years thousands of new residences, millions of feet of commercial space will be built there. The south of this, on two large projections separated by a ship canal, is the still operating portion of Toronto Harbour which includes docking facilities for both freight and cruise ships.

Forming the southern border of the Inner Harbour are the Toronto Islands a, a chain of small natural islands. Most of the islands are today parkland, with a handful of permanent inhabitants. The westernmost portion of the islands are dominated by the Toronto City Centre Airport, a small regional airport. The airport is linked to the mainland by means of a ferry at Bathurst Street. Controversy arose in 2003 when the port authority proposed replacing the ferry with a bridge, because of concerns about increased vehicle and air traffic along the waterfront. Mayor David Miller canceled the plans for the bridge soon after winning office.

To the east of Cherry Street is another area that is partially industrial and partially abandoned known as the Portlands. This area is home to the shuttered Hearn Generating Station, which there are controversial plans to replace with a new Portlands Energy Centre. There are longterm plans to also transform this area into a mix of commercial and residential developments, but no firm proposals have been developed. The southern portion of the Portlands was intended to eventually be an outer harbour, but the demand for such a harbour never developed. Instead this area today home to Cherry Beach, while the large breakwater known as the Leslie Street Spit is today a popular park and birding area. East of the Portlands begins the well known Beaches area of Toronto. This prosperous part of town is named after the series of four connected beaches that lie along the waterfront in this section of the lakeshore. The western boundary of this region was once home to the Greenwood Raceway. The racetrack was demolished in the 1990s and a new residential neighbourhood constructed in its stead. The eastern boundary is the R.C. Harris Filtration Plant, still the source of much of Toronto's water supply and also a prominent Art Deco monument.

Eastern areas

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The Scarborough Bluffs

The Scarborough portion of the waterfront is dominated by the Scarborough Bluffs, a series of cliffs that run along the lakeshore. On the top of the cliffs are a number of suburban neighbourhoods such as Cliffside, Cliffcrest, Scarborough Village, Guildwood, and West Hill and large manicured properties such as Rosetta McClain Gardens and extensive grounds of the St. Augustine Seminary. The bluffs end at the deep ravine of Highland Creek. The most prominent site along the creek juncture with the lakeshore is Bluffer's Park, a large park and marina built on fill below the bluffs.

East of Highland Creek is the Port Union so named due to the existence of a Port facility that existed there from 1832 to 1873 and which disappeared with the arrival of the Grand Trunk Railway now known as CN community and the southern portion of the protected Rouge River Valley. The arrival of the Grand Trunk Railway creating an environmental disaster and totally destroyed the mouth of the Rouge River north of the bridge creating a marsh area. It is at this old Port Union site that the local heritage group called the Nancy-Griffon Foundation Inc who is sponsoring the restoration and regeneration concept known as King's Harbour Marine Park along with the public funding from conservation authority is attempting to restore a beautiful old waterfront amenity once enjoyed by the early settlers of Scacrborough-Agincourt. Unlike the rest of the Toronto waterfront initiatives this is a "green field" concept with a full environmental study, site design plan and feasibility study designed by architects from the Universities of Waterloo, Laurier and Guelph and the Harvard University School of Architecture and landscape design under the leadership of Dr. Mac Hancock. This plan is designed to avoid all the miasmal [political and financial] pitfalls that are now plaguing the rest of the waterfront and is little reason that it is the only project underway while other projects deal with cosmetic applications. It also speaks volumes about dealing with one public agency and one private sponsor. This project is a cameo of co-operation and hence results are being readily achieved. From here, the lakeshore then intersects with the extreme eastern border of the city of Toronto with Pickering at the Rouge River delta and the infamous wetlands created by the Grand Trunk in 1885.

Revitalization plans

In late 1999, the most recent plans to revitalize the central area of the Waterfront (limited to that located between Dufferin Street and Leslie Street) were unveiled and the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation -TWRC was set up. The corporation is guided by a nine-member board of directors with three members appointed by each of the three (Federal, Provincial and Municipal) levels of government. All three levels appointed the Chair, President and Chief Financial Officer with the first two Robert Fung and John Campbell receiving an annual salary of $300,000+ Robert Fung. In 2003, the corporation appointed a new CEO and President. The annual budget for the Toronto Waterfront is $17 billion with less than ½ of 1% being allocated to those areas in Etobicoke and Scarborough-Agincourt which while the entity is titled Toronto Waterfront, is only interested in the central Toronto waterfront. John W. Campbell.

The Central Waterfront area of downtown Toronto was once an industrial and shipping area. Decades of attempts to rehabilitate the area have been made, but none has been successful. Many politicians have promised change, but it has yet to occur.

The current revitalization exercise has seen some progress on planning for areas such as the East Bayfront (Yonge Street to Cherry Street) and the Don Lands (North of the railway tracks and between Parliament Street and the Don River). Although the Don Lands consisting of the old Toronto brickyards in the north and the old brickyards later distillery in the south end are not on the waterfront, are backing instead onto the Don River. Demolition of an old building kicked off work on the latter project on March 27, 2006. There are a number of projects underway and some that are already complete consisting mainly of shoring up old buildings. The primary interest here of course is the probability of commercial development again for high rise developments and zoning for same in order to sell the lands for private ventures and publicly assisted housing to hopefully attract Provincial funding.

There have been concerns raised in the community about how the health of the ecology is being put behind the drive for City Building. There is also concern that projects are moving forward without a sustainable integrated energy strategy, even though the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation budgeted $50 million dollars to undertake this study very early on in the process. The Province of Ontario knowing full well the "black" nature of the sub-soil and land has agreed with the Federal Government to waive all environmental studies in order to move development along. Everyone knows the pollution is there, including the Federal Government which downloaded the land to the City of Toronto as a 1967 Centennial gift.

Anti-poverty activists have also questioned plans that do not include subsidized housing or help for the poor. They may now get their wish for schools and may very well be housed on all the polluted port lands.

The jurisdictional issue is a complex one [only because the politicians make it that way] and it is currently causing the visions that have been formed through public consultations and in communications from official bodies over the last 8 decades to be distorted. In the case of community interests, many are well funded and well conceived plans put together by engineering firms, many with better thought out and supported by feasibilities studies and environmental assessments, are for the most part politely ignored simply because they are from non-government approved bodies. The federal government has authority over port facilities and some issues that may be subject to Federal Environmental Assessments (such as projects effecting bodies of water). The province controls the municipality, has Environmental Assessment requirements, has a stake in energy generation and usually makes itself involved in any large ventures that the municipality is attempting to undertake. The municipality has some direct control of the zoning of some sites (not owned by other governments) and responsibility for infrastructure like roads and waste management. To confuse things further, the Ontario provincial government owns much of the land in the TWRC domain. All three levels own some land in the area (71% of total land in central waterfront area) divided among a number of ministries, crown corporations, agencies and other public bodies.

With the restructuring of the city structure, the new city department responsible for the waterfront is now the Toronto Waterfront Secretariat Division which now competes directly with the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corp.

Central Waterfront Innovative Design Competition

The Toronto Waterfront has seen at least 15 design charettes over the last 65 years. The most recent being the Innovative Design Competition for the Central Waterfront took place in 2006, and was won by a team led by West 8, an architecture firm from Rotterdam. In an all too familiar refrain, often echoed after these design charettes, it aims to provide a bold new face for the central waterfront. The design includes a wide promenade along the waters and extensive green space. Bridges rising from the boardwalk and spanning the ends of the slips will provide continuous public access to the lakeshore. It's amazing what one can do with a sidewalk these days, as that is all that is left of the Toronto centered waterfront. In the scheme, the southern half of Queens Quay will be turned into a pedestrian walkway which the architect envisions will become Toronto's version of the La Rambla, Barcelona's celebrated pedestrian route. The first phase is to be completed by 2008 provided they can find the money. A key obstacle. See major issues.

Major issues

• An important obstacle is the Gardiner Expressway, a raised highway that runs just north of the lakeshore and also serves to separate the city from the lake. Proposals call the highway to be replaced with an at-grade level 10-lane thoroughfare or burying it (tunneling), but implementation of any such plans would be extremely expensive and would entail massive traffic disruptions. Like the Boston ditch and $10 billion later.

• The Front Street Extension is a planned extension of Front Street and by far the most expensive road ever proposed in Canada, with an estimated cost of $170 [actually 10 times that amount] million for two kilometres. The extension is contentious and has been debated as a planning issue since 1983 [read 1943] when it was first proposed.

• The Portlands Energy Centre is a recently approved natural gas electrical generating station, which has met with large-scale local community opposition.

• The Toronto City Centre Airport generates both strong opposition and strong support from different groups both inside and outside the city, and was a major issue in the 2003 municipal election. Opposition by residents prevented the building of a bridge, but the federal government paid a $35 million (CAD) out-of-court settlement to the affected parties, part of which may have helped launch Porter Airlines. Over the past decades there have been no plans announced to expand the size of the airport, which serves only propeller aircraft.

• Renaturalization of the Don River mouth. Straightened in order to accommodate yet again more industry with another channel to compliment the Keeting Channel, the lower Don Lands are planned to be "renaturalized" and the surrounding flood plain area, [which will wash it all away later] including the downtown core are going to be flood proofed by building a berm proposed in the early 60's by City Planner Eric Arthurs who like so many before and since was completely ignored. There is currently an environmental assessment underway on this proposal which was waived by the Province. Ecologists are calling for a return to the lacustrine marsh that existed in Ashbridges Bay prior to extensive land filling done since the late 19th century.

• The needs of existing recreational stakeholders. For over thirty years, several sailing, rowing, and windsurfing clubs have been using the area east of Cherry Beach and south of Unwin Avenue. These volunteer-run clubs, comprised collectively of up to 2,000 members, have spent many years building up physical and recreational infrastructure which would be difficult to replicate elsewhere. Many of the plans proposed for this area have literally written these clubs off the map.

Wharfs and Piers

Wharfs existed along Toronto's waterfront in the 19th Century, but they have since been replaced by quays. Most of the former wharfs disappeared when the waterfront was filled in along with the now "missing" Creeks of Toronto.

A list of former wharfs along the central waterfront:

• Dufferin Street Wharf
• Queen's Wharf - Bathurst Street
• Conner's Wharf - York Street
• Millous Wharf - Yonge Street
• Hamilton Wharf - Church Street
• Sylvester Brothers and Hickman's Wharf - Church Street
• Northern Railway Wharf and Elevator - Portland Street
• Taylor's Wharf - George Street
• Hogarty and Grussett Wharf and Elevator - Simcoe Street
• Walsh and Love's Wharf - Simcoe Street
• Tinning's Wharf - York Street
• Higginbotham's Wharf - Yonge Street
• Manson's Wharf - Market Street
• Toronto and Northern Railway Wharf - Berkerley Street
• Gooderham's Wharf and Elevator - Don River

A list of current quays/slips along the waterfront:

• Bathurst Quay
• John Quay
• York Quay
• Queen's Quay
• Yonge Quay
• Rees St. Slip
• Simcoe St. Slip

Timeline

• 1793 - John Graves Simcoe orders the building of Fort York to guard the western entrance (then, the only entrance) to the harbour.
• 1813 - American forces capture and burn the fort at the Battle of York
• 1832 - Construction of the Gooderham & Worts distillery to the west of the Don River mouth which grew to become the world's largest distillery.
• 1858 - a violent storm rips a gap in the base of the Leslie spit — the gap later becomes the eastern channel.
• 1890s - First undertaken as a sanitary works project, channelization of the lower Don begins, first the mouth is straightened directly southward (Ainsworth Cut).
• 1911 - Toronto Harbour Commission created to manage port infrastructure and work on resolve the Don River mouth alignments.
• 1922 - Construction of the Keating Channel is completed in order to allow large container vessels deeper water access closer to the Don mouth and nearby industry.
• 1935 - Construction begins on a tunnel from the end of Stadium Road to the western sandbar (a future airport site) as a depression relief project; it is abandoned several weeks later after a change of federal government.
• 1939 -After 11 years of planning and two years of construction, the Port George VI Airfield (later Toronto City Centre Airport) opens on the western sandbar, near the foot of Bathurst Street (a second airport, later Toronto Pearson International Airport, opened in Malton two years earlier)
• 1940–43 - The Royal Norwegian Air Force trains at the Island Airport during the Nazi occupation of Norway.
• 1949 - While docked at pier 9, the luxury cruise ship SS Noronic catches fire and burns, killing over 118 people and effectively ending the golden age of passenger cruise ships traversing the Great Lakes.
• 1954 - Hurricane Hazel changes the topography of the harbour, splintering the main island into several smaller islands.
• 1971 - Ontario Place opens, on man-made islands to the West of the Toronto Islands
• 1972 - Harbourfront Centre is established by the Federal Government
• 1988 - Royal Commission set-up to formulate a plan for Toronto's harbour
• 1999 - Then Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, Premier Mike Harris and Mayor Mel Lastman announced at a press conference the formation of the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Task Force
• 1999 - Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation is established; Toronto Port Authority created to replace the Toronto Harbour Commission
• 2000 - The (Robert Fung) Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Task Force Report was released to the public
• 2004 - The Rochester/Toronto Ferry starts service in May and ends in November
• 2006 - The Rochester/Toronto Ferry announces that it will no longer be in business
• 2006 - The Ontario Government proposes a new electrical generation plant in the port lands (Portlands Energy Centre)
• 2006 - REGCO Holdings signs a 25 year deal with the Toronto Port Authority to run an airline service out of the island airport (Porter Airlines)

See also

• Toronto Harbour
• Harbourfront Centre, Toronto
• Toronto Port Authority - government agency responsible for control of the port lands area
• Toronto City Centre Airport
• Toronto Islands
• Cherry Beach
• Keating Channel
• Leslie Street Spit and Tommy Thompson Park
• Hearn Generating Station and Portlands Energy Centre - a proposed new electrical generation plant

External links

• City of Toronto: Waterfront
• King's Harbour Marine Park
• The Big Dig 2
• Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation
• Toronto Port Authority
• Toronto Island Sailing Club