Hi! It’s us, the kids of Toronto. We know that eventually we will be adults, but we feel like no one listens to us. We see what's happening in our city but it's like no one seems to ask us what we think.
We love Toronto, like the Jays, Raptors, Leafs and all that. But the city is so much more! We like to do things that are outside, active and fun - and we want to be able to get to our schools, activities, and friends’ homes without having to go in the car.
Yonge Street? People say it has potential now. But how come no one has done anything about it?
This YongeTOmorrow plan looks smart. We like to ride our bikes but are too scared to ride downtown. We loved it when the streets were closed to cars in the summertime. We felt safer and had so much fun riding freely!
When we grow up we want to have a nice place to go meet friends, go shopping and eat yummy food. We see the way that streets are made clean, green, and safe for kids around the world. Why can't we have that here?
We wanted to write this so the people who are deciding on the future of this amazing street will listen to what we think. Because we are going to be adults one day, and Yonge is going to be our street.
If you are one of those people, we really hope you listen.
A decade ago, a debate over rebuilding Yonge would have been conscripted by right-wing councillors into a fight against the alleged “war on the car.” The mere suggestion that cars should lose space to transit or cyclists or walkers was enough to unleash caterwauling. But things have changed. The first pandemic wave a year ago presented cities around the world with an urgent need to rethink what their streets could be. The resounding conclusion was to make more room for people.
Last week at Toronto City Council, before the vote on a proposal to halve traffic on Yonge to two lanes from four, a few voiced the old war-on-car worries, but with none of the pound-the-table angst of years past. One councillor quipped that he was “listening to the gasping death rattle of autosaurus.” The final decision was a landslide: 21-5 in favour.
For the first time in more than 100 years, city council has signed off on a possible redesign for one of the city’s most iconic stretches of road.
Yonge St. between Carlton and Queen Sts — heavily favoured by pedestrians — is proposed to see car lanes reduced to just two and widened sidewalk space with bike lanes between College and Gerrard Sts, added seating, planting and gates to allow for road closures in pedestrian “priority zones” in several blocks.
From the energetic core of Toronto, to the beautiful and placid shores of Lake Simcoe, Yonge Street is one of the longest streets in the world. In normal times, it is a vital connector for tens of thousands of GTA residents every day, and large sections of the street - particularly in downtown Toronto - are major destinations in their own right due to their plentiful options for shopping, entertainment, and dining. However, as Toronto has grown and evolved, the transportation needs on this busy thoroughfare have shifted. Indeed, between 1996-2016 there has been a massive 73% increase in the population, and a 43% increase in overall employment in downtown Toronto along the Yonge Street corridor.
