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What is your favourite bridge in Toronto?

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During my coast-to-coast road trip this summer (I’ll have more posts on the trip over the coming weeks) I crossed over a wide variety of bridges. Some of them were remarkable (Lions Gate Bridge in Vancouver, Laviolette Bridge in Trois-Riveres) while others were simply charming (Finlay Bridge in Medicine Hat, Broadway Bridge in Saksatoon).

It got me thinking about which of Toronto’s bridges I’d consider as some of my favourites. I think the Humber Bay Pedestrian Bridge would top my list, followed closely by the Bloor/Price Edward Viaduct.

So I put it to our readers: tell us which bridges you like/love in Toronto and the reasons for your affection. Your input will help us with a feature in the upcoming issue of the magazine. If you need to jog your memory, Wikipedia has a comprehensive listing of the city’s overpasses.

photo by Bouke Salverda

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17 comments

  1. I love the obvious ones like the Humber Bay bridge and Prince Edward Viaduct too, but I think my favourite is the Wallace Ave. Footbridge, connecting Wallace Ave. to Dundas West / Glenlake over the CN/CP railways.  It’s over 100 years old, and a beauty to look at or down from.

  2. No question, it is the Prince Edward Viaduct because of a family connection. My Grandfather was in the Royal Navy and escorted Prince Edward to Toronto to open the Bridge. After his return to England, he convinced my Grandmother to pull up stakes and move to Toronto. The fact the Viaduct has a role in Michael Ondaatje’s “In the Skin of a Lion” only makes me like the bridge more.

  3. Certainly love the Bloor Viaduct. I can’t get enough of telling people how it was engineered to accommodate trains below the road many years before such a thing actually came to pass.

    I’m a big fan of the Wallace bridge, too. Love that it pretty much looks the same as it did in the 1890s. I think it’s an amazing testament to practicality over cost concerns. There was very little around then, and it must have been reasonably easy simply to cross the tracks at grade, but there you go, a beautiful Victorian bridge.

    I can’t go without mentioning the Pape St. pedestrian bridge at the west side of Gerrard Square, though. Its highly inefficient, but futuristic design captured my attention as a kid, and of course it appears prominently in an episode of The Kids of DeGrassi St.

  5. The Cherry Street Bascule bridge over the Toronto Ship Canal. I love lifting bridges, and it is a fine example.

  6. The Bathurst Bridge. I enjoy looking at the train tracks and watching the GO trains coming in and out of the city.

  7. The Wallace bridge isn’t *quite* what it was–its approaches were modified in a 1990s bike-and-safety-minded restoration/rebuild (hint: they didn’t have cylindrical concrete columns way back when)
    Anyway, my own sleeper favourite is this, at RCYC http://www.flickr.com/photos/blueworx/3414998392/ …it may look Calatrava-era, but astonishingly, it’s from the late 1950s, one of Toronto’s truly unsung civil engineering landmarks.

  8. For me too the obvious, most grand choice would be the Prince Edward Viaduct.
    But a more sentimental / personal choice would be one that is buried — The Harbord Street bridge. I grew up in the area and have very fond childhood memories of playing in both Bickford and Harbord Parks–especially tobboganing on the hills. I always thought it was cool that the north balustrade was spared after the bridge was buried. It provided a perfect seating area to just chill and watch the world go by. Ah, to be a kid again!

  9. The bridges over the ravines in Rosedale – especially the Glen Rd. bridge – it has an understated elegance and great views, but is even more remarkable when looked at from below, in the ravine.

    A lot of Toronto’s bridges are really magnificent when looked at from below, from the ravines they cross. The number of such views in Toronto may be one of our city’s little-known and distinctive delights.

  10. My favourite would have to be the bailey bridge along Old Finch where it crosses the Rouge River.  There’s something unique about an old, one lane style bridge like that still found within a megacity’s borders.  For those interested… http://maps.google.ca/maps?q=finch+and+ressor&hl=en&ll=43.825533,-79.197178&spn=0.00637,0.013937&sll=49.891235,-97.15369&sspn=46.914964,114.169922&t=h&z=17&layer=c&cbll=43.825506,-79.197045&panoid=uqcCi82ew7lppTorBoYtHw&cbp=12,135.81,,0,10.32

  12. The footbridge over the Moore Park ravine, connecting the Toronto and East York sections of Heath St E. The one over the rail line at Summerhill, east of Mount Pleasant. The Glen Road footbridge. And possibly the one over the tracks south of Front at Portland, once it’s finished.

  13. Wikipedia is not infallible. Unless I’ve missed it, the Bathurst Bridge over the rail corridor south of Front Street is not on its ‘comprehensive’ list.

  15. The Fort York pedestrian and cyclist bridge.

  17. A second nod to the bailey bridge on Old Finch Avenue over the Rouge River.