Comment 119002

By RobF (registered) | Posted June 02, 2016 at 11:35:05 in reply to Comment 118990

Toronto did put in place appropriate zoning and development along the Yonge subway route, resulting in the "Toronto Mohawk", a spine of high-density buildings and development along Yonge Street that is easily visible from the air.

The more appropriate example is the Bloor-Danforth line, which functions like a street-car line in terms of distance between stops and has very little "high-density" redevelopment along it ... and where it does, such as near High-Park there were some serious battles by neighbourhoods during the late-1960s, early-1970s reform period to oppose it.

The early damage to businesses on Danforth Avenue also played into strong resistance to a subway on Queen Street when an early iteration of the downtown-relief line was floated in the early-1970s (Bill Davis' Tory government was willing to pay 75% of the capital costs at the time ... that offered died with stagflation and big deficits). At any rate, people like John Sewell (then an alderman, a few years later mayor of Toronto) argued that it would damage the neighbourhood thru high-rise redevelopment and expropriations for stations, etc. His argument (and that of others) likened the subway to an expressway and thought it was solely to benefit commuters from the suburbs. Let them slow-down and ride streetcars was the rallying cry ...

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