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The Death and Life of Great Queen Street

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Hot on the heels of the Fix the Queen Streetcar Forum, where the corpse of the once great 501 line was kicked around and administered the defibrillator paddles, National Geographic has released a new coffee table book called “Journeys of a Lifetime: 500 of the World’s Greatest Trips” and it includes our Queen line. From CP:

The 501, boasting one of the longest streetcar routes in North America, is listed among the top 10 trolley rides on the planet. Others include Berlin’s Tram 68, Lisbon’s 28 Tram, Seattle’s George Benson Waterfront Streetcar, New Orleans’ St. Charles Streetcar Tour, Hong Kong’s trams and San Francisco’s Streetcar F.

National Geographic lists trolleys as “the best way to see a city from an insider’s perspective.”

With the frustrating waits, short turns, packed cars and riders bailing out and seeking other ways to get around the bottom of Toronto, it’s easy to forget what a magnificent trip the 501 can be (when you’re not in a hurry). We once rode the entire length from Long Branch to Neville Park on a Sunday afternoon and it was quite something to see the character of the streetcar change as it passed through so many different neighbourhoods. For those needing an additional reminder of our Queen’s storied magnificence, read through the Queen Street — One Street / Many Stories online archive written by Rick BeBout:

Queen Street is one of Toronto’s oldest, longest, and most varied routes. It began in 1793 as a line on a map, running dead straight for ten miles, in modern measure some 16 kilometres. It is the spine, the high street, the main street of many distinct, and quite different, neighbourhoods.

The street runs through the very heart of the city, bustling with traffic, bristling with towers, a downtown barely aware of the shoreline just south. From each end of Queen, far east and west, we can look out unimpeded over a vast Great Lake, an inland sea: Toronto’s very reason for being.

It passes where people live (more than 100,000 within a few blocks north and south), work (100,000 more by day, even some at night, in downtown towers), and play — from one end to the other, each once leading to a lakeside amusement park. The street is address to public libraries, firehalls, police stations, churches and schools, even a former university; two City Halls, old and new; an asylum (three prisons nearby, two former); an Art Deco palace of water purification and, not far away, a high tech sewage treatment plant. There were once even public loos.

The good news is most of the bad news can be solved with some political will and smart planning, which will eventually come — what’s that about hitting the bottom before going back up? Queen Street can (and will) again live up to its deserved reputation as a great trip.

Photo by rhygin.

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8 comments

  1. It’s a stunning trip. As an east-ender, I had absolutely no idea at the time how Queen St was like after, say, Gladstone Avenue.

    I think I unnerved the driver.

  3. Wow, I have been in 4 of those trolley rides and I didn’t even know they were among the top 10. The 501 deserves only the best, and maybe it is time to make the whole street a right of way with wider sidewalks and bike lanes, forget the parking and car traffic (I am allowed to dream, right? :))

  4. That shouldn’t be a dream! Along with a lot of priority and schedule changes exalted by Steve Munro, Queen Street should be a complete Streetcar ROW with larger pedestrian sidewalks and REAL bike lanes separated from both pedestrians and public transit.
    This can be done very easily and would dramtically reduce air pollution in the area, which will increase the livability of Queen from Roncesvalles to Vic Park

    Why isn’t this on the minds of anyone else?

  5. I can attest to the San Fran F line. Truly a great trip. I would add the J CHurch line to that list also..
    I have yet to do a entire trip on the 501 Queen Car. Maybe this weekend..

  6. I loved the Charles streetcar trip from Canal St. through the Garden District in New Orleans.

    Hopefully it is now fully reopened after Katrina.

  7. Another great Toronto ride is the 506 from Main St. to High Park. You pass directly through the upper beach on Gerrard, Little India, Chinatown East, Regent Park, Cabbagetown, Past Maple Leaf Gardens, Yonge and Carlton, UofT, Little Italy, Little Portugal(?), some more places I don’t know of cause I’m an East Ender, and glide gracefully into High Park, just in time for a nice walk!

    Beats the 501 if you ask me!

    -k

  8. 504 for me.

    From Broadview Station, you watch the city from the East side of the Don River… through East Chinatown… under the arches of the Queen Street Bridge (“this river I step in is not the river I stand in”)… past some of Toronto’s oldest warehouses and factory buildings… glide by St. James Cathedral… right through the heart of the Financial District (TD Centre, the TSX, Scotia Tower)… looking left, you get a nice peek at Union Station and the SkyDome… then a ride through Liberty Village, Parkdale’s vibrant community with another peek left at the Dufferin Gates as well a beautiful overlook of the lake, up Roncesvalles Village and straight into Dundas West Station.