{"id":6345,"date":"2009-08-31T09:00:12","date_gmt":"2009-08-31T13:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=6345"},"modified":"2009-08-31T10:24:37","modified_gmt":"2009-08-31T14:24:37","slug":"john-lorinc-tunnel-visions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/08\/31\/john-lorinc-tunnel-visions\/","title":{"rendered":"JOHN LORINC: Tunnel visions"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Here’s something for public space advocates to chew on: With their plan for a $38 million tunnel to the Toronto City Centre Airport, Robert Deluce and the Port Authority have inadvertently opened — or re-opened — the delicate issue of unfettered pedestrian access to rest of the Toronto Islands.<\/p>\n

Which currently doesn’t exist, and we should all say that out loud, three times.<\/p>\n

This summer’s strike offered a vivid reminder that the Islands really belong to the Corporation of the Municipality of Toronto, not the people of Toronto, who are granted access to said green space under carefully controlled conditions.<\/p>\n

Sure, you can get there if you have a yacht or want to shell out a handful of tourist cash for a water taxi. But the islands, unlike the rest of Toronto’s parklands, remain a restricted access zone thanks to the city’s quaint but annoying ferry monopoly.<\/p>\n

The Deluce\/TPA tunnel scheme raises the question: Why?<\/p>\n

Imagine that the City, at some point in the future, decided to bore a tunnel under the Eastern Gap<\/a> — not unlike the foot tunnel<\/a> that runs under the Thames, connecting Greenwich to Canary Wharf in London.<\/p>\n

Over the next few economic cycles, the Port Lands will develop into a real part of the city, with thousands of people living and working in the area.<\/p>\n

Does it make sense to create pedestrian\/cycling connections between Cherry Beach and the eastern end of Ward’s Island? Of course. It’s not difficult to foresee an integrated network of shore-line bike trail\/boardwalks circumnavigating the turning basin and the shores of Lake Ontario Park, with a tunnel to the islands to complete the link.<\/p>\n

The TTC will someday run streetcar service down Cherry Street, and one could even make a case for dropping a streetcar tunnel under the gap, to provide even better non-car access to the Island and relieve crowding on the ferries.<\/p>\n

I hope that day will come because I hate the herding pens at the ferry docks<\/a>; in this day and age, they impede access to the islands.<\/p>\n

The Porter\/TPA proposal sets the stage for this debate. And it’s interesting to consider how city councillor Adam Vaughan’s lonely objections would fare in a fight over a pedestrian tunnel. In a recent open letter<\/a>, Vaughan offered up a truckload of procedural counterarguments, the capstone of which decried the lack of a business case.<\/p>\n

True, the airport tunnel does have a specific commercial mandate and Porter (or its successors) will benefit. But Toronto has been permitting pedestrian tunnels with commercial mandates for a long time (Exhibit A: the PATH system).<\/p>\n

Indeed, the notion of building pedestrian links shouldn’t come with a profit expectation. We’re boring a tunnel under the tracks at Simcoe Street to link one area to another. We’re talking about pedestrian bridges over railway corridors for the same reason. There’s no business case. Such links are about city building.<\/p>\n

Mayor David Miller wisely lost his appetite for the airport fight long ago. Council blocked the fixed link, Deluce built a successful airline and life at the harbourfront went on. Having forgotten the potency of the original battle as a symbol of the uneven disputes between developers and residents, Vaughan continues to tilt at turboprops with no prospect of success.<\/p>\n

A more constructive strategy would be to re-frame the issue in terms of modernizing pedestrian (i.e., citizen) access to what is one of Toronto’s defining public spaces. Sam McBride might spin in his grave, but I’m willing to take that risk.<\/p>\n

photo by Sam Javanrouh<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s something for public space advocates to chew on: With their plan for a $38 million tunnel to the Toronto City Centre Airport, Robert Deluce and the Port Authority have inadvertently opened — or re-opened — the delicate issue of unfettered pedestrian access to rest of the Toronto Islands. Which currently doesn’t exist, and weContinue reading “JOHN LORINC: Tunnel visions”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4051,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2,6,5],"tags":[1050,1503,12974,2369,655,425,1030,359,426,12977,1269,1504,3416,12978,1496,663,12976,2023,19,12975,420,391],"class_list":["post-6345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bikes","category-politics","category-walking","category-waterfront","tag-adam-vaughan","tag-airline","tag-canary-wharf","tag-cherry-beach","tag-city-councillor","tag-david-miller","tag-john-lorinc","tag-london","tag-mayor","tag-non-car-access","tag-port-authority","tag-port-lands","tag-porter","tag-portertpa","tag-robert-deluce","tag-sam-javanrouh","tag-sam-mcbride","tag-thames","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-city-centre-airport","tag-toronto-islands","tag-usd"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJOHN LORINC: Tunnel visions - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/08\/31\/john-lorinc-tunnel-visions\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"JOHN LORINC: Tunnel visions - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here’s something for public space advocates to chew on: With their plan for a $38 million tunnel to the Toronto City Centre Airport, Robert Deluce and the Port Authority have inadvertently opened — or re-opened — the delicate issue of unfettered pedestrian access to rest of the Toronto Islands. 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